A Not So Model Home

by David James

  “It’s not the comments I’m worried about. They don’t leave a hole like a bullet can.”

  CHAPTER 15

  A Twisted Game of Twister

  The next morning, we assembled in Ian’s living room to get ready for another day of shooting. As usual, we started at 6 A.M. since there was so much to set up, everyone had to be made up, and it was all done so that we could start shooting around 10:30 when the deep shadows of morning and evening weren’t around. Scenes had to be matched for lighting too. I never knew that even in small productions like Things Are a Bit Iffy, it took so much time to prepare what was supposed to end up looking so real and spontaneous. The entire cast was present, except for Keith, who, as usual, was the last to show up.

  Apparently, no one got a lot of sleep last night. At around 2:30 A.M., one of Ian’s penis sculptures slipped off its base at the top of the stairs and went tumbling down the stairwell, taking several other penises with it in its tumble. The noise could’ve waked the dead, Aurora reported. Ian, David, Drake, and Marcus eventually came running downstairs over the commotion, but, of course, it was Ian who made the loudest noise over the incident. Ian actually wailed over the loss of his work of art since he claimed that it was a scale model of Jack Wrangler’s cock. Jack Wrangler was one of the most famous gay porn stars in the 1970s. Anyway, by the time the guys got Ian calmed down, got him to swallow an Ambien, and escorted him back to his bedroom, a good half-hour had passed and everyone eventually went back to sleep.

  But now that it was morning, Jeremy was getting visibly upset that Keith hadn’t showed yet.

  “David, could you be a dear and go fetch Keith? We need to start shooting ASAP!” he said. As soon as David padded upstairs, Jeremy continued, “Okay, to bring you all up to speed, the last time we had Keith reveal he was Ian’s son and Ian had incestuous sex with him at one time or another. We also had the sabotaging of Gilles’s clothing and David’s hair, the uncovering of Aleksei’s penile implants, blah, blah blah. Let’s keep those events in mind as we start today. We’ll want some reactions about the incest thing.”

  A minute later, David came back down the stairs, flung himself back in the chair he had just vacated, and picked up the copy of Numéro magazine that he had been reading earlier without saying a word.

  “Well . . . ?” Ian spoke up. “Is Keith coming down or are we going to have to start without him?”

  “If I were you, I’d start without him. He’s dead,” David pronounced, flipping another page in his magazine.

  “What do you mean dead?” Ian asked, scratching for an answer. “You mean, like dead to the world, like in a deep sleep?”

  “No, like dead-dead. Like not living. Not breathing.”

  “Are you sure?” Ian continued, not believing what his ears were hearing. The rest of the cast sat with their mouths stuck open, showing hundreds of blindingly white teeth. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, Ian”—David put his magazine down with an annoying slam onto the coffee table—“he’s lying there on the floor like he’d been playing a game of Twister by himself. I think he probably overdosed.”

  “Why would you think that, David?” Ian asked with more than a little irritation showing.

  “Because he’s a dealer.”

  “He is not!” Ian struck back. “My son is not a dealer.”

  “Yes, he is, Ian—or was! I’m sorry to break the news to you, but Keith is a dealer . . . and not a very good one either. Bad drugs. The shitty stuff. Ian, his clubs haven’t been doing so well, so he’s been supplementing his income by selling drugs in his clubs. He’s been supplying a lot of models too. Female and MALE!”

  Several sets of eyes hit the floor or wandered off into space, trying to look as innocent as possible.

  “Uh, guys,” I said, butting in. “We seem to be forgetting that someone is dead upstairs. Maybe. Probably.”

  I got up and was followed by everyone else in the room—except David. I guess he had made up his mind, had seen enough, and seemed more interested in a spread in a French women’s fashion magazine than confirming whether Keith was taking a long nap or ready to push up a whole lot of daisies. When we got to Keith’s room, I was shocked by what I saw. I expected to see Keith sitting as if he had fallen asleep in a comfy chair on a snowy afternoon. This was not the case. Keith’s body was lying on the floor, bent back in a painful arch like some kind of sadistic Pilates exercise. We’re talking painful. Even worse was the expression on his face. He looked like he had died crying, no, bawling his eyes out, his mouth in a downturned scowl. This was not a quiet death.

  Ian rushed around me and tried to pick Keith up and cradle him, but Keith was stiffer than an Episcopalian singing a black spiritual.

  “My son, my son!” Ian wailed, holding Keith for the appropriate amount of time, then letting him drop to the floor. “I just can’t take it. Why is it that I always have to bear so much sorrow? I am retiring to my room now and taking another sleeping pill. No one is to disturb me until lunch.”

  Ian left and the rest of us huddled around the doorway, not sure of what to do. Jeremy’s assistant, Tony, called out from downstairs: “I’ve called 911 and they’re on their way.”

  Having experience with several bodies in my listings or at my own house, I stepped in and decided to take charge.

  “Okay, we’ve disturbed the crime scene enough. We need to leave the area and go downstairs.”

  No one moved an inch.

  “What’s the matter, guys?” I pleaded.

  “We’re scared,” Aleksei reported, taking a quick consensus from the crowd.

  “Why?”

  “Because Keith was murdered. The killer may be still in the house.”

  “How do you know he was murdered?” I asked, lying to myself when I knew full well that Keith was put out of action for his ties to Ian.

  Gilles, oddly—and thankfully—silent for the longest time, spoke up, “Someone want to get Keith out of the contest. So, pop!” he said, pointing his finger like a gun, then shooting it.

  “Let’s all go down together; then we’ll all be safe.”

  Gilles, not known for having tremendous insights into life—or anything, for that matter—had made an astute observation. “The killer, he ees one of us, perhaps?”

  I hated to agree with anything that Gilles said, but in this case, I had to admit to myself that he was probably right.

  Several police cars arrived within minutes, probably owing to the fact that the dispatcher recognized Ian’s address from the 911 call. Ian was a constant irritant in Palm Springs due to his caustic nature, but he was also a big contributor to police charities. Mostly as a payoff to keep his partiers from being arrested for drugs or explicit public sexual acts.

  Several uniformed policemen entered, followed by a plainclothes detective. Dating a homicide detective gives you a little insight into how the police operate. Plus, this one recognized me.

  “Amanda! Fancy meeting you here!”

  I fished around in my memory and hoped I got the name right. “Jerry? Jerry Hallander?”

  I got a great big hug from the detective.

  “I haven’t seen you since you were brought into the police station for breaking and entering.”

  “The charges were dropped, Jerry.”

  “That’s right. You and your gay ex. You were trying to find out if that Realtor, Mary Dodge, killed Doc Winters. Wow! It seems like ages. So, what’s going on here?”

  I took him into the kitchen, sat him down, and proceeded to tell him the whole story. He was taking it all down on his iPad. He then started upstairs, beckoning to me with his finger to follow him. I did, leaving the rest of the cast downstairs and bewildered as to why I was getting special treatment.

  “So, Jerry, why are you bringing me up here with you? To what do I owe this honor?

  “I need someone who’s on the inside. I need you to fill me in on the personalities here.”

  “Jerry, they’re male models. Personality isn�
�t the first word that comes to mind.”

  “You know what I mean. Who’s who, etcetera.”

  “You mean who’s doing who? The answer: everyone.”

  “Well, nothing’s changed here. We’re always getting calls about guys screwing on the lawn of Ian’s estate.”

  “Jerry, the walls here must be eight feet tall and the vegetation is higher than that. You can’t see anything from the street.”

  “You can when you’re on the celebrity tour bus. It’s a double-decker.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I guess the tourists got some photos that the folks back in Kansas won’t believe.”

  “That’s not the half of it, Amanda. Sometimes there are guys screwing, sometimes there’s someone dressed in a rubber catsuit tied between palm trees. Whipping, flogging, piss parties. You name it, we’ve gotten complaints about it.”

  “I had no idea,” I replied as we walked down the hall to Keith’s room. “You see, Jerry, that’s the problem with being a straight woman in a gay town. Great parties and fun bars, but you always feel like an outsider.”

  “You’re upset because you don’t get invited to a piss party?”

  “No, not that. It’s just that life is going on around here and I’m not on the inside track.”

  “I’m a straight cop in a very gay city. How do you think I feel? But I get on with my life. I don’t get invited to a lot of parties since there are either drugs there or people are drinking and driving. People treat me like they’ve invited someone’s mother to a party. Not fun.”

  Normally, Jerry wouldn’t even leave a blip on my sexual radar screen, but he had changed since I had last seen him. He lost some weight, put on some muscles, and stopped having his gray hair dyed, leaving it to go my second favorite color after jet black: salt and pepper. He wore a really nicely tailored suit. In short, he had climbed quite a few numbers on the hot meter.

  We reached Keith’s room. Jerry peered in, then whistled.

  “Boy, I haven’t seen this in a long time,” he said.

  “Seen what? A murder? You’re a homicide detective.”

  “No, strychnine. Nasty stuff.”

  “You can tell just by looking at him?”

  “Amanda, this isn’t conclusive, but it has all the signs of strychnine. The jackknifed back, the eyes wide open, and the grimace on the face. Looks like he’s been dead since late last night. So you think one of the guys downstairs killed this . . .” he said, looking at his iPad again, “. . . Keith because he was the son of Ian Forbes?”

  “Possible heir, Jerry.”

  Jerry stood at the doorway, avoiding going in just yet until the crime scene unit arrived. He scanned the room slowly, over and over, looking at the carpet, the windows, drawers, bed. I scanned the room, too, but didn’t see anything that looked suspicious. Well, except for the glass on the nightstand, which probably delivered the poison.

  “Look at the glass,” Jerry commented.

  “What’s so unusual about it?”

  “It has the faintest tinge of red. Very, very faint.”

  “And that means what? Keith often drank cranberry juice because he was susceptible to kidney stones.”

  “Orange juice is a better antidote to stones.”

  “Oh, so you’re a doctor too?” I joked, realizing that I was starting to flirt a bit.

  “Just a detective. Amanda, is there someone here who manages the property?”

  “Drake Whittemore. He manages the estate, inside and out.”

  “Excellent. I have a question to ask him.”

  “He’s sitting downstairs.”

  “Before we go down, has he had relations with Ian Forbes?”

  “You’re not a very good detective, Jerry. All of the men downstairs have pillowed Ian at one time or another. With the exception of the show’s staff . . . you know, the director, cameramen, etcetera. Actually, I can’t say that’s completely true. There’s a lot of sex that goes on around here.”

  “Gotcha. Let’s go find Drake.”

  We descended the stairs, and as I followed Jerry, I eyed the entire cast to see if there was guilt visible on anyone’s face.

  “Which one of you is Drake?” Jerry asked.

  “I am,” Drake responded.

  “Could I ask you a few questions in the . . . er, kitchen, wherever that is?”

  “Sure.”

  As Drake got up to lead the way, Gilles piped up. “Oh, oh. Zee trouble begins.”

  Drake, as usual, didn’t respond to the daily comments and quips that sailed around Ian’s home like an erratic parrot.

  We entered the kitchen and I offered a seat to Drake. Drake declined, preferring to stand. I was curious. What was Jerry looking for? I tried to figure out where his path of logic was taking him, but I couldn’t yet discern anything.

  “Drake, are there pocket gophers on the estate?”

  Jerry’s question caught me totally off guard. Either he was very good or just crazy.

  “They’re all over the place,” Drake admitted. “They’re driving Ian crazy since his cha-cha heels sink into their holes when he’s walking on the grounds.”

  “Okay . . .” Jerry replied, discerning a bit of scorn in Drake’s voice. “Drake, do you keep gopher poison here on the estate?”

  “In the potting shed. I’ll show you.”

  Drake led the way to a building on the back of the garage. He opened the door to the shed and led us inside.

  “There’s no lock on the shed door?” Ken asked.

  “No,” Drake replied. “Why lock it? It’s full of pots and garden tools. Nothing worth stealing. Besides, no one ever goes in here but me. No one that I know of. Can you imagine Ian or any of his playthings getting their hands dirty?”

  “I see your point,” Ken replied.

  The shed was neat beyond belief. The shelves were orderly to a compulsiveness, with labeled bottles and labeled drawers. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Jerry slowly took in the room, then pointed toward a large white, plastic, spike-shaped container lying on a high shelf, neatly on its side.

  “Drake, is that the container where the gopher poison is stored?”

  “You mean this?” Drake responded, reaching for the container, only to have his hands stopped in mid-flight by Jerry’s hand.

  “You don’t need to touch it, Drake.”

  Drake, having been to Yale, was no dummy. “You suspect that Keith was poisoned? Shit! Well . . . you insert the spike into the ground until you feel it hit a gopher tunnel; then you pull it out, drop some pellets into the hole, and cover it up.”

  “Drake, now it looks like you run a very tight ship here. Can you tell me if anything is missing . . . or out of place?”

  Drake looked around a few seconds, but it seemed more to placate the detective’s questioning. “Nope, everything is where it’s supposed to be.”

  “You seem awfully sure of that.”

  Drake smiled. “I can tell. Believe me. I’m orderly to the point of being insane.”

  “Okay, Drake. Thank you for your time. You can return to the house. Oh, and even after the crime lab people have gone through the shed, could you not touch anything for a few weeks? Thanks.”

  “Sure. You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help.”

  After Drake had gone, I started with my questions.

  “So gopher poison is made of strychnine, huh?”

  “Yes, blended with barley grain or anything enticing to gophers.”

  “So does strychnine have a taste?”

  “It’s incredibly bitter.”

  I inched a bit further. “So it wouldn’t be tasted if it were in something strong like cranberry juice?”

  Jerry, still looking around the shed, put his finger on his nose and pointed the other free index finger at me. “You might make a good detective one day. Keep it up. If it does turn out to be strychnine—which I would bet that it was—the killer knew enough that he had to hide the taste.”

  “And even more telling, the killer had to
know that Keith regularly drank cranberry juice because of his kidneys.”

  “And . . . ?” Jerry prompted me, seeing if I could make the leap to the next clue.

  “Uh . . . Uh . . . you went to the well too many times, Jerry.”

  “Someone would have to grind up the gopher powder somewhere to make the poison. So somewhere on the estate, maybe, there’s a container that was used in the commission of the crime. If the killer is smart, that container is probably in someone else’s trashcan miles from here by now, but you never know. So we need to stop all garbage going out immediately.”

  I looked around the room, wondering if any of the containers here were used to prepare Keith’s lethal beverage. There was an old-fashioned watering can, a small, dented metal paint bucket, a few old plastic food containers that Drake had washed out and reused—it was hard to tell. I guess that only the forensics unit would know for sure.

  “I wish I could hire Drake to organize my house. Look at this place! Everything in its proper place, everything labeled, nothing out of place, nothing broken. Perfect.”

  Jerry looked around the room again and commented, “A bit on the anal side, isn’t he?”

  “I’d be careful how you use that word around here if I were you, Detective.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The Pocket Gopher Did It

  Jerry questioned everyone separately. Just about everyone was up fairly late. Aleksei was busy coloring his newly grown, but very short hair stubble so that it would be ready for the day’s shooting. David was performing fellatio on a nearly comatose Ian, then returned to his room to look through a stack of fashion magazines. Gilles was on his computer watching some of the French fashion shows on YouTube. Aurora was going over notes that she had written up about the men on the show. And Ian, as usual, couldn’t sleep and took an Ambien and crashed until Lance Greenly shook him out of his coma when the sculpture fell down the stairs. Lance was up most of the night working on financial projections for Ian’s company for next year. His story got real interesting when he said he went down to the kitchen at around 1:30 to get a Red Bull and saw Keith coming out of Aleksei’s room with his shirt off. Everyone else said they went to bed by 1 A.M. and didn’t get up and didn’t leave their rooms until the stairway incident.