The Dead and the Beautiful

by Cheryl Crane

  “Yeah, I don’t really follow the news either,” she mused. “But I know who does.”

  Chapter 11

  “I really appreciate you getting this appointment for me, Marshall,” Nikki said into her phone the next day. “Especially on such short notice.” She’d just had her hair washed in the posh Byron & Tracey salon in Beverly Hills. She was waiting for her stylist, who was finishing up with another client.

  “Not a problem, sweetie. Byron and I are buds. I hope you like McCale. He’s super sweet. I think you should go for the bangs.”

  “No bangs. I’m just getting a trim.” Nikki liked her natural red hair (Victoria called it strawberry blonde), but she wasn’t very adventurous when it came to styling. She wore it parted on the left side, and it hung below her shoulders. Often it ended up in a ponytail.

  “Be bold. Be brave. Go for the bangs,” Marshall teased. “They’re very in right now.”

  “No bangs,” she repeated, glancing up to see Kate Bosworth, in dark sunglasses, slipping out the door. She lowered her voice. “So you’re sure there hasn’t been any gossip about Ryan and other women?”

  “Positive. Never, ever,” Marshall said. “In fact, there was a spread in some magazine last year. I can’t remember which. It was about faithful husbands and wives in Hollywood. Let me tell you, the list was short, but he was on it.”

  “But that’s so un-Hollywood,” she said, thinking out loud.

  “Right. Monogamy, it’s just not done. Ashton and Demi. It broke my heart when they split up.”

  “You think Ryan was smart enough to keep his extracurricular activity a secret?”

  “I don’t know,” Marshall hemmed. “You met him. Nice guy. Gorgeous, for sure, but not the sharpest arrow in the quiver.”

  Nikki groaned and fussed with the collar of the white terry robe she’d been given to wear. She’d left her blouse in a locker, but unlike some of the women she saw walking by, she kept the rest of her clothing on. She wasn’t here for a spa day. She was here on reconnaissance . . . and to get her split ends trimmed. “We’ll see what McCale has to say,” she told Marshall. “Then I’m going to run over to the gym where Ryan had a membership and see if I can bump into his trainer.”

  “Well, if he was cheating, those are the people who’ll know. Hairdressers hold all the secrets in Hollywood. There’s something about that chair. I know I can barely keep my mouth shut when I’m sitting in one. Hairstylists are worse than bartenders with good Scotch.”

  Nikki heard voices in the background.

  “Gotta run,” Marshall said. “Photo shoot for GQ.”

  Nikki groaned. “Please, your celebrity status is killing me. Weren’t you just in GQ?”

  “Cover, this time,” he sang. “Somehow my manager talked them into running it the same month my next movie comes out. I’m coming, sweetheart,” he said to someone.

  “You coming to Movie Night tomorrow night at Mother’s?” Victoria’s Movie Nights were famous in Beverly Hills. Once a week, she had dinner for a dozen or so people and then showed a classic movie in the media room that she’d built before the days of media rooms. An invitation to a Victoria Bordeaux Movie Night was as coveted as an invitation to a family dinner at the Spielbergs’.

  “Lawrence of Arabia?” Marshall said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Behave yourself . . . and be careful,” he added.

  “Be careful?” she asked. “I’m getting a haircut.”

  “And putting your nose into police business again. I’m just saying. Be careful. I don’t want you ending up on the wrong end of a semiautomatic.”

  “I’m rolling my eyes,” she told Marshall. “Can you see me rolling my eyes?”

  A man in his late twenties walked into the shampoo area. He was tall and slender, and was dressed head to toe in black. “Nikki?”

  “Talk to you later, Marshall,” she said into the phone. She hung up and got to her feet, accepting the young man’s hand. “McCale. Nice to meet you.”

  “And you,” he bubbled. His bleached blond hair was chin length and appeared to have been chewed off with . . . a chain saw, maybe? And he had seriously dark roots. Were they intentional? She couldn’t tell. Nikki was beginning to wonder if she ought to reconsider having McCale cut her hair.

  “Right this way to my station,” he went on. “I couldn’t believe it when Byron said that Marshall Thunder had called asking for an appointment with me for you. God, he’s a hunk and a half. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make him the next James Bond.”

  Nikki smiled at the thought. “British Native American?” she asked. “That would be interesting.”

  “Wouldn’t it, though?” He led her behind a long row of styling chairs; every single one was occupied. Everything in the salon was white: the chairs, the tile, the carpet. White scared Nikki; she couldn’t wear a pair of white pants or a white blouse without getting salad dressing or diet soda on it. “I can take your bag and hang it right here. Have a seat.” He motioned to a chair three quarters of the way down the row.

  Nikki handed him her bag.

  “Vintage Prada,” he murmured. “Very classy.”

  She sat down. The woman to her left getting blond hair extensions was talking on her cell, a mini mop dog on her lap.

  “I’m going to throw a cape on you, if you don’t mind. Just to be extra cautious. A beverage?” McCale snapped the black cape, as if he were a bullfighter, and draped it over her, securing it at the nape of her neck. “Coffee, tea, mineral water? A nice pinot grigio?”

  She held up her hand. “No, thanks. Just the trim.”

  “Beautiful hair. Gorgeous, natural color. God, I love a natural ginger,” McCale fussed, holding up a strand of her hair and letting it fall. “Now, I understand you want bangs. I think they’ll frame your face magnificently.”

  Nikki looked in the mirror in front of her to see McCale leaning over her shoulder. He lifted a thick lock of hair and held it over her forehead, demonstrating a thick fringe of bangs.

  “I don’t think I’m ready for any changes,” she told him. “Just the trim today.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” He walked around her and went to his station on the wall. “So, how long have you known Marshall?”

  “Years. My mother introduced us.”

  “Victoria Bordeaux,” he sighed, fiddling with one pair of scissors, then another. “I adore that woman. I once held a door open for her at a restaurant. She was very pleasant. Very genuine.”

  Nikki smiled. “She is that.”

  McCale returned to his place behind the chair and Nikki watched as he combed out her wet hair.

  “But you must be used to celebrities,” she said, hoping her segue was smoother than it sounded. “I know you have a long list of star clients. Marshall said you were Ryan Melton’s stylist. Shocking, wasn’t it? His murder.”

  McCale clutched his comb to his chest. “I was a mess! I had to call out sick the next day. I took a Xanax and went back to bed. Devastated,” he declared, shaking his shaggy head. “You can’t imagine.”

  “Awful,” she agreed. “I’d just talked to him a few nights before it happened. At my mother’s garden party. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “Nice, nice isn’t the half of it!” McCale gushed. He began to snip at her hair.

  “I met Diara, too.”

  “Did you?” Snip. Snip. “Please tell me she’s as gorgeous in person as she is on the screen.”

  “Gorgeous.” She flicked a piece of hair off her arm. “They’d been married a few years. What, five? Six?”

  “Going on five, I think.”

  “And you know,” she said, “I never heard a single rumor about him. You know, with other women.”

  “He was totally devoted to Diara. Of course, Diara . . .” His tone changed.

  Nikki met his gaze in the mirror in front of her.

  “Yes?” she said quietly.

  “I’m not sure the fidelity was reciprocated,” he whispered.

  “N
o,” she breathed. She didn’t know why that surprised her. How chauvinistic of her to assume he was the cheater. “She was cheating on him?”

  “So I heard.” He snipped as he talked. “But it was all very hush-hush. You know, to protect her squeaky-clean image. It wouldn’t have done her well to have her name plastered all over the tabloids, not with her being a Disney deb and all.”

  “Do you know with whom?”

  “Well, you know, I always wondered about her relationship with Angel Gomez and Julian Munro.”

  Nikki frowned as she remembered seeing Julian that day on-set. Her thoughts flew. Megan had said he was there all the time. Were Diara and Julian having an affair? Or Diara and Angel? Had Diara been the one who erased the security footage? Had Diara and Julian, or Diara and Angel, killed her husband so they could be together? It seemed far-fetched, but cops always looked at the wife first, didn’t they? At least in the movies.

  “So, what do you think?” McCale asked, holding her hair over her forehead. “Just a few wisps to try it out?”

  “You’re not coming?” Nikki said quietly into the phone. She’d spent the morning at work on the phone, then gone for the haircut, then met clients for a walk-through before settlement in Bel Air. She’d ended up running late and had to throw her vintage blue lace Valentino cocktail dress on in the bedroom Victoria still kept for her. Short of hospitalization, one was not late to Movie Night.

  Nikki stepped into a pair of taupe Christian Louboutin heels. “And you’re just cancelling now, Jeremy?” She tried not to sound too witchy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m just not up to it. I had a lousy day at work. The kids are arguing. It’s Maria’s day off, so the house is a mess, and my sister can barely drag herself out of bed to see to her own child.”

  Nikki could hear Victoria greeting guests downstairs at the front door. She needed to get down there and help her mother host. “It’s just that I was looking forward to seeing you,” Nikki said. What she really wanted to do was talk to him about everything she’d learned in the last couple of days. It was all just a jumble in her head. She couldn’t figure out which details were important and which weren’t. She was thinking that maybe if Jeremy could get Alison to confide in him . . . but by the tone of his voice, she doubted that would be happening anytime soon. She sighed. “It’s fine. I understand.”

  He was quiet on the other end of the line and she felt the emotional distance between them widening. She wondered if she was making a mistake siding with Alison in this mess. Was she risking her relationship with Jeremy to come to his sister’s defense? Was this really any of her business?

  But someone had to believe in Alison, didn’t they? If Victoria hadn’t stood by Nikki that night at that marina, hadn’t believed her when others hadn’t, she might not be who she was today. Where she was.

  “I have to run, Jeremy,” Nikki said. “The guests are arriving.” She paused, wanting to tell him not to worry, that everything would be okay. But what if it wasn’t? “Talk to you tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Nikki ended the call and tossed her phone on the pile of discarded clothes on the bed. With a swipe of lipstick and a touch of Versace perfume, she went down the curved staircase to the elegant black and white tiled front hall.

  “At last, Nicolette.” Victoria turned to her distinguished guest. “You know Jerry,” she introduced. “Governor, my daughter, Nicolette Harper.”

  “Nice to meet you, Governor.” Nikki gave him the smile as she shook his hand.

  “Could you show Jerry out to the terrace, where we’re serving cocktails, dear?”

  “This way.” Nikki and the governor of California made small talk as they walked through the house and out onto the candlelit terrace. There, he excused himself to speak with a Silicon Valley start-up CEO.

  Nikki made her way to the bar and ordered a club soda. She was just accepting the glass when a man behind her spoke to her.

  “And there you are again, Ms. Harper.”

  She turned to see Detective Cutie-Pants: nice suit again, club soda in a glass in his hand.

  “Okay, I really am surprised to see you here,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was invited.” He raised his glass to her. “I like your hair. Something different. The bangs.”

  “Wisps,” she corrected, sweeping the fringe of red hair off her forehead. She wasn’t going to tell him about the haircut or the fish tank. She took a step toward him. “My mother really invited you?” She kept her voice low.

  He tipped his head down and moved so that they stood beside each other. “I know . . . a cop. We don’t exactly travel in the same circles, you and I, but then, in a way, we do.”

  She nodded and sipped her drink, gazing out at the other guests milling around on the stone terrace. “Dead people. Right. Sure.”

  He smiled. He was good-looking, and for the first time since she met him she had a feeling maybe he knew it. Maybe he used it to his advantage. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was flirting with her.

  “Flying solo tonight? No Dr. Fitzpatrick?” he asked.

  “He couldn’t make it. He’s home taking care of his sister. Someone had her arrested.”

  “Touché.”

  She turned to him, suddenly serious. “Tom, you don’t really think Alison did it, do you?” She studied his face, trying to read him.

  “We had enough evidence for an arrest.”

  “That’s not an answer, Detective.”

  He glanced at her. “How do you keep getting involved in cases like this?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. They sort of find me.”

  He narrowed his eyes, holding her gaze for a moment. “You really don’t think Alison Sahira killed Ryan Melton.”

  “Do you care what I think?”

  “I shouldn’t, but I have to admit, you’ve apparently got a knack for this.”

  “Alison didn’t kill him, Tom. I’m telling you, I know her and she doesn’t have it in her. And with a dog leash? Come on. Use your Spidey sense.” She frowned. “Someone obviously set her up. Maybe your arrest was premature. Now, you don’t have the evidence on the security footage that you thought you had.”

  His mouth tightened, but he didn’t lose his cool demeanor. “How did you find that out?”

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  He held her gaze for a second. “Nikki, I know I said this before, but you really do have to stay out of this. You have to let us perform our investigation.”

  “You’ve made an arrest. How much more investigation will there be?”

  He was quiet for a minute. Maybe because he knew she was right, or at least a little right. “How’d you find out about the security cameras?” he asked.

  “Can’t reveal my sources.” She waited a beat. “What was on the laptop?”

  This time he chuckled. “You want a job? I think we’ve got a detective position opening up.”

  “Got a job.” She smiled and nodded to two of her mother’s guests, a Spanish film director and his wife. “What’s on the laptop?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Does Alison know what’s on it?”

  “I don’t know.” He sipped his drink, looking over the rim of the glass at her. “Does she?”

  “She’s not talking.”

  “She say who hired Lyin’ Lillie?”

  Nikki did the eyebrow thing. “Lyin’ Lillie?”

  “Lillie Lambert.”

  “Yeah, I know who you mean. I just thought that only cops on TV talked that way.”

  “Nah.” He grinned. “I’m sorry to say, we really do talk that way.”

  She studied him for a minute, taking in the expensive haircut, the designer suit. “What’s your story, Tom? Because you don’t add up.”

  “I don’t add up?” He gave her a Sundance Kid half smile. He was definitely flirting with her.

  “You don’t seem like a cop. You seem more like . . . someone who’s used to cocktails on the o
ne thousand block of Roxbury Drive.”

  “Buy me a drink sometime. You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.” He glanced away, then back at her. “Excuse me. I need to say hi to the governor.”

  Nikki watched the detective walk away. She was still standing by the bar when Marshall made his entrance onto the terrace, a skinny blond model she recognized from the cover of Cosmo on his arm. The Amazonian waif was Swedish and barely twenty-one. He left her with a glass of champagne by a potted palm and came over to stand beside Nikki.

  “New girlfriend?”

  He groaned. “My publicist arranged the date. You know how paranoid he is, especially with the new film being released. We have to keep up my heterosexual reputation, you know.” He ordered a Scotch, neat, at the bar and then stood beside her and swirled the amber liquid around in the Baccarat crystal glass the bartender handed him. “But you might actually enjoy talking to her.”

  She studied the young woman for a moment. She looked good on the Cosmo cover, but in person, she was emaciated. “You think we have a lot in common, she and I?”

  He smiled, nodded, and took a sip of Scotch. “More than you’d guess.” He leaned and whispered in her ear.

  Nikki looked at him, her eyes going wide; then she grabbed his arm, pulling him toward his date. “Introduce me.”

  Chapter 12

  “Nice to meet you, Oda.” Nikki offered her hand. The model was at least six foot tall. Maybe six-one.

  Oda had a surprisingly firm handshake.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you ladies to chat.” Marshall put one arm around Nikki’s waist and the other around his date’s. He kissed Oda’s cheek, then Nikki’s, and walked away.

  Oda’s gaze followed him and Nikki felt a little sorry for her. Did the poor thing really think she had a chance with Mr. Sexiest Man Alive?

  “Such a gentleman.” Oda spoke with only a slight Swedish accent. “It’s a shame I prefer the ladies.”

  Nikki met the model’s gaze and found herself smiling. “Blind date?” she asked.