The Dead and the Beautiful

by Cheryl Crane

  Jocelyn looked at Nikki as if to say, Will you take care of her? Nikki nodded.

  Jocelyn was walking out of the kitchen with her backpack on her shoulder at the same time that Jeremy was walking in. He closed the pocket doors behind him.

  “All right, Alison. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  At the sound of his abrupt tone, Alison lifted her head from the counter and turned on the stool. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  He took another step toward her. “You don’t know? You spent the day in jail and you don’t know what’s going on?”

  Alison trembled at the sound of his voice.

  “Jeremy.” Nikki brushed his arm with her hand.

  He took a deep breath. Exhaled.

  Alison sat there on the stool, hanging her head, staring at the Italian tiled floor.

  “Why were you arrested, Alison?” Nikki asked. “What evidence was strong enough for them to actually arrest you? Was it just because your fingerprints were on the dog leash?”

  “What dog leash?” Jeremy looked at his sister’s teary face. “Ryan Melton was killed with a dog leash?”

  “With Alison’s fingerprints on it,” Nikki admitted. “But that’s not enough evidence to convict someone,” she went on quickly. “I’m surprised Dombrowski would issue a warrant on that lame evidence.” She looked at Alison. “Is that all they have on you? Just the dog leash?”

  Alison’s lower lip quivered.

  “Jeez,” Jeremy muttered, shaking his head. “What’d you do, Alison? Huh? What’d you do?”

  “I didn’t kill him. You have to believe me.” She burst into tears. “I . . . I didn’t . . . k-kill him, but . . . but . . .”

  Nikki let go of Jeremy’s arm and stood in front of Alison. Now she was getting annoyed. “You didn’t kill him, but you what?”

  “I . . . I . . . l . . . lied . . . to . . . to the . . . p-police. I . . . I think they . . . they know. The . . . the security tapes.”

  “You lied to the police? Not again. Really, Alison? What, you didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”

  “I was scared!” Alison shouted, surprising not only Jeremy and Nikki, but, apparently, herself.

  Nikki threw both her hands up as if refereeing a boxing match. Jeremy turned away and strode to the other side of the kitchen.

  “You lied about what, Alison? What did you tell the police that wasn’t true?”

  Jeremy was now pacing.

  “Oh, this is bad,” Alison moaned. “This is so bad. Farid’s going to take Jocelyn.” She began to rock back and forth. “He’s going to take Jocelyn, and then he’s going to move back to Saudi Arabia and I’m never going to see her again.”

  Nikki grabbed both of Alison’s hands in hers. “You’re not going to lose custody. Now look at me. Look at me and listen.”

  Alison slowly raised her gaze. Tears ran down her sallow cheeks.

  “Tell me what you lied about.”

  Again, Alison’s lower lip trembled. “I . . . I said I was in the house because I was bringing Muffin back. But . . . but that . . . it wasn’t exactly true.”

  “You weren’t returning the dog?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I did take Muffin home. But . . . then I went back again. That’s when the fish guy told me he was dead.”

  “Why did you go back after you dropped off the dog?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Alison blubbered.

  Nikki exhaled. Alison continued to sob. Jeremy continued to pace.

  “Okay, okay,” Nikki said after a moment. She patted Alison on the back. “It’s all right. But you can’t lie to the police. Do you understand me? You can’t lie to Detective Dombrowski. He’s a good guy. He’s a fair guy, but he’s smart. He’ll catch you in a lie.” She had a whole mouthful of questions, but she knew she wouldn’t get any answers as long as Alison was hysterical. “Just tell me you understand.”

  She nodded, taking a shuddering breath. “I understand.”

  “And you can’t lie to me either,” Jeremy said.

  Nikki looked over her shoulder at him, then back at Alison. “Who bailed you out?” she asked quietly. Calmly.

  “I . . . I don’t know. I . . . I’m not supposed to say anything to anyone.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Alison tried to hang her head, but Nikki tugged at her hands.

  “Who?” Nikki repeated.

  “My attorney.”

  “What attorney? You hired a defense attorney already?”

  Alison shook her head. “I don’t have money for an attorney. I don’t know who hired her. The attorney . . . she said it was a . . . a concerned citizen.”

  “A concerned citizen?” Jeremy asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Alison shrugged, fighting another wave of tears. “I don’t know, Jeremy. I swear, I don’t. She . . . she took care of my bail; then she picked me up at the holding facility and she dropped me off here.”

  “She who?” Nikki asked.

  Alison fumbled in her pants pocket and pulled out a business card. “Lillie Lambert.”

  “Lillie Lambert?” Nikki took the card and stared at it. Lillie Lambert was one of the most well-known, highest-paid hotshot lawyers in Hollywood. Word was, Lillie Lambert was the woman to hire . . . if you or a member of your family were guilty. Just the previous year, she’d gotten a producer’s son off on vehicular homicide. It had been a crazy case, worthy of plenty of Nancy Grace airtime. In the end, Lillie Lambert’s client had gotten off scot-free, and another producer was forced to live with the death of his son and the knowledge that the young man responsible would never actually be held responsible.

  Nikki turned to look at Jeremy. He must have been thinking the same thing, because now he was pale, too.

  “I have to go to the powder room,” Alison said. She got up from the bar stool, tucked a straggly piece of hair behind her ear, and walked out of the kitchen.

  Nikki walked up to Jeremy. “She didn’t do this,” she said.

  He wouldn’t look at Nikki. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do,” she whispered. She looked up at him and slowly he shifted his gaze until it met hers.

  “What if she did, Nik? I can’t have her in my house . . . with my kids.”

  “Why would she kill Ryan Melton? She doesn’t know him. She walks his dog.”

  “She lied to the police,” he said. “She admitted it.”

  “I lied to the police once. I told them he forced me into that car.”

  “That’s different. You were a kid.”

  “I wasn’t a kid. I was nineteen and I knew exactly what I was doing when I got into that car.”

  He put his arms around her shoulders. “Nikki,” he breathed.

  “She didn’t do it,” she repeated, slipping her arms around his waist. She rested her cheek on his chest for a minute. He smelled good. Jeremy always smelled good.

  They just stood there that way for a minute; then he let go of her. “That time when she was arrested. For the robbery. She told me she wasn’t with them in the car when they shot a man while robbing his store. She said it was a girl named Alice. There was no Alice.”

  “Jeremy, how long ago was that?”

  “I don’t know. Fifteen, sixteen years ago. Right before she met Farid.”

  “Has she done anything since then to suggest to you that she would do something like that now?”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed one temple. “I just don’t know that I can trust her. That I should. I mean . . . she’s been arrested. The police don’t arrest you without serious cause.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Why are you so quick to come to her defense? You’ve never been a big Alison fan.”

  “Because she didn’t do it.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said.

  I know it, she thought to herself. And I bet I can prove it.

  “So why did you come to her defense?” Marshall asked.

  Nikki looked up from the fanzine she was flipping t
hrough while lying on her stomach across Marshall’s enormous bed. She’d taken the magazine off a pile on the nightstand. She was scanning an article on the Ryan Melton murder.

  Marshall was going through his closet, choosing clothing he no longer wanted that he could donate to a charity auction. His partner, Rob, an undercover cop, was working the nightshift. Usually, when Rob was working nights, Marshall stayed at his official residence on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. He was big box office and he had a public image to keep up. Nikki didn’t necessarily agree with his decision to remain in the closet. She didn’t know that it was healthy, after all these years. But it wasn’t her call.

  Tonight, against his manager’s advice, he’d decided to stay at Rob’s—which happened to be next door to Nikki’s—which was how they met in the first place. He said he didn’t feel at home in his enormous, opulent mansion in Beverly Hills. Here, he said, he felt safe. Here, he could sleep, even without Rob.

  Marshall came out of the walk-in closet in a lavender sweater and white linen pants. He strutted, then posed as if modeling for a GQ magazine cover. “Stay or go?”

  She looked up from a splashy page of Ryan and Diara’s wedding photos. “I thought you were going for the rugged look these days.” She made a face. “Go.”

  “But I love this sweater,” he protested.

  “The pants are wrinkly.”

  “Egads, Nicolette,” he said, his imitation of Victoria awfully damned good. “They’re linen!” He leaned over the bed. “Oh my God! Isn’t she gorgeous? I’ve never seen that photo before.” He pointed to a photo of Diara in her wedding gown, standing in an array of white rose petals.

  “There’re two pages.” She turned the page. “They married four years ago. You must have seen them on the first go-round. I remember they were splashed all over the magazines.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, taking the magazine out of her hands. “My God, my God. No, I never saw these.” He flipped the page, then flipped it back again. “These are new releases. Look at that cake. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  Nikki looked at Marshall. “Diara would have never released wedding pictures to the press the same week her husband was murdered. Would she?”

  “Maybe.” He closed the magazine and held it up. “This kind of publicity is expensive: a glossy front cover with a two-mil circulation? With exposure like this, she’ll be in meetings next week renegotiating her Casa Capri contract.”

  Nikki stared at the front cover, a photograph of Ryan and Diara walking hand in hand down a red carpet. Two beautiful people. One now dead.

  She thought about poor Alison, lying in her bed at Jeremy’s . . . scared she’s going to lose her daughter. She thought about Diara. Diara and Ryan had appeared to be the happy couple at the party last Saturday night, but were they?

  Was the evidence at the crime scene so obvious as to be too obvious? Had someone set Alison up?

  Who could have afforded to pay Alison’s bail so quickly? Diara certainly could have. But if she had something to do with the murder, why would she bail Alison out? Nikki felt like she had more questions now than answers.

  Chapter 7

  “I’m sorry,” the young man on the other end of the phone line said. “Ms. Lambert is in court today.”

  Nikki gazed up at the yellow light in front of her, judged her speed and distance, and then reluctantly hit the brakes. Traffic was heavy on Beverly Boulevard. But then it was always heavy midday. “Would it be possible for me to make an appointment?”

  “Regarding?”

  Nikki couldn’t say she wanted to talk to her about Alison and the Melton case. There was no way she’d agree to that. No attorney would. “It’s . . . confidential,” she said.

  “Of course.” He then named an astronomical fee for a fifteen-minute appointment and offered a day and time.

  “That’s three weeks from now,” Nikki protested. And there was no way she was paying that kind of money for fifteen minutes with Lillie Lambert. Nikki wasn’t as frugal as Victoria, but she was still her mother’s child.

  “Yes,” the receptionist said, not even bothering to apologize.

  “Well, that just won’t be acceptable,” she said, quoting Victoria.

  “Have a good day,” the young man responded.

  “You too.” Nikki hung up using the button on her steering wheel. The traffic light had just turned green when her phone rang again. The screen on the dash identified the caller as Victoria. “Hello.”

  “Are you coming, Nicolette?”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.” Someone honked his horn behind her as she slipped around a panel truck. “Traffic.”

  “I only have an hour.”

  Nikki glanced at the dashboard. “You said one o’clock. It’s twelve forty-five. I’ll still be early.” She signaled and changed lanes. It wasn’t cutting someone off if you signaled first, was it? “You sure you don’t want me to stop for takeout somewhere?”

  “Goodness, no. I told you. The amount of food they throw away here, it’s a sin. I’ve left your name at the gate. Hurry, Nicolette, I’m starving.”

  Ten minutes later, Nikki walked into the studio where Casa Capri filmed their indoor scenes. The director had declared a closed set after Ryan’s death, to protect Diara, no doubt, but no one beyond the studio front gate stopped her. After only one wrong turn down a dark hallway, Nikki found the set where they were filming that day: the office of the family vineyard where Victoria’s character and her sons and daughter schemed and double-crossed. She heard Victoria before she spotted her.

  “Well, that looks like an eggroll to me. Can you explain the difference?”

  Nikki ducked to avoid being hit by a microphone on the end of a pole being carried by a young man talking on a headset who didn’t look old enough to be on a TV set without his mother. She sidestepped around a corner and saw Victoria, dressed in character in a pink Jackie O suit and kitten heels, standing in front of a food service table. The long table, covered with a white linen tablecloth, was laden with lunchmeats, salads, fruits, vegetables, and sweets.

  A cute redhead in her late twenties, wearing a headset over pigtails, was talking with Victoria. “Good question. I don’t know . . . except that spring rolls are smaller.”

  Spotting Nikki, Victoria waved her over. “Try one of these little eggrolls, Nicolette. Megan says they’re spring rolls. They’re divine.”

  The young woman smiled shyly at Nikki.

  “Nikki Harper.” She offered her hand.

  “Megan Larson.” She tucked a clipboard thick with paperwork under her arm and shook Nikki’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Megan is the assistant director’s assistant, but everyone knows she’s in charge here,” Victoria explained. “Megan knows everyone, knows everything, and, most importantly, knows where to get a cup of decaffeinated Earl Grey tea.” She motioned to Nikki. “What are you waiting for? Take a plate, dear. And try one of these spring rolls. They’re vegetarian.” She handed Megan plasticware wrapped in a napkin. “Could you hold this?”

  Megan met Nikki’s gaze as she accepted the cutlery. “You better get a plate.”

  Nikki liked her sassy tone. “Mother’s mentioned you.” She picked up a plastic plate. “I appreciate the way you look after her.”

  “Oh, Ms. Bordeaux doesn’t need anyone to look after her. She does fine all on her own.”

  Nikki put some Asian coleslaw on her plate and glanced around the enormous room with the office set, directly in front of them. Men and women moved around, adjusting cameras while munching on sandwich wraps and, apparently, spring rolls. “So, production is running on time, despite Ms. Elliot’s loss?” she said, trying to put it as delicately as she could. It was Monday: Ryan hadn’t been dead a week yet.

  “What can I say? She’s dedicated to her craft.” Megan gave a shrug. “Maybe it’s easier to be here, working, rather than wandering around that big house of hers. All alone. Knowing he died there.” She shuddered. “I can’t imagi
ne.”

  Nikki doubted Diara had even been allowed to enter her house yet. It was probably still taped off as a crime scene. She was most likely staying with friends, or maybe at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. It was where everybody who was anybody stayed.

  “Have you heard when the funeral will be?” Nikki asked.

  “He’s being cremated.” Megan nodded to another young woman with a clipboard and headset walking by. “One of the stylists told me. Then a private memorial service, but no one knows when. I guess that’s how you keep it private. Have you been by their house on Mulholland? People are leaving flowers and notes and teddy bears and stuff in front of their gate. I heard there were even people there with candles Saturday night, some kind of vigil.”

  “The girl will be lucky if she can ever go home,” Victoria injected. “Is that turkey or chicken? I hope it’s turkey.”

  “Is Diara around?” Nikki glanced behind her. The studio was full of people coming and going: actors and actresses, the film, sound, and lights guys and gals. “I’d like to express my condolences.”

  “Probably in her trailer.” Megan stood patiently at Victoria’s side. “She’s been totally professional, but she’s not socializing with us much. Kameryn, Julian, and Angel were here all day Friday and again today. Mostly in Diara’s trailer. You know, supporting her. Being there for her. They’ve been friends a long time. My little sister was into their show. She cut pictures from fan magazines and plastered them all over our bedroom wall. She was crazy-excited when she heard I got this job. She’s in college now, but I bet she’d love autographs from the Disney Fab Four. I just haven’t had the nerve to ask. It wouldn’t really be appropriate right now, anyway. You know?”

  Nikki’s gaze settled on Kameryn Lowe, standing in the middle of the office set; she had joined the cast recently. She wasn’t dressed for filming, though. She was wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, and glasses. She faced Nikki, and was talking to her husband, Gil, whose back was to Nikki.

  Nikki eyed Kameryn and Gil as she moved from dish to dish on the table, trying to only take a little of anything that looked too good to pass up. She couldn’t hear what Kameryn and her husband were saying, but it seemed to be an intense conversation. Kameryn appeared upset; Gil was trying to calm her down. He reached out to put an arm around her shoulder, but she pulled away.