by Dianne Emley
He stopped at the front gate.
The detectives hopped off.
Vining said, “Chase, we want you to keep your eyes and ears open about what goes on in that house.”
Chase rubbed his temples.
“You have a problem with that?” she asked.
“I guess I don’t understand what your case in Pasadena has to do with Trendi Talbot or the girls in that photo, or what any of it has to do with Gig and Sinclair.”
Vining couldn’t have said it better herself. “We don’t know either, Chase, but there’s something fishy going on. Once Detective Kissick and I get to the bottom of it, then we’ll decide whether we can dismiss it as the eccentricities of the rich and shameless.”
Kissick spoke up. “John, what do you know that you’re not telling us?”
Chase exhaled with exasperation. “I could get fired if Gig finds out I’m talking to you like this. All due respect, Detectives, but I’m between a rock and a hard place here.”
“If you have knowledge of criminal activity and are covering it up, that’s a conspiracy,” Vining said. “We’re not going to push this now, but you’re going to have to answer these questions sooner or later.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you having a migraine?”
“No, ma’am. It’s just a situation that comes and goes.”
“You need to get medical attention for that,” Vining said.
“I’ve been to a doctor. Like I said, it comes and goes.”
“All right. Take care of yourself.” Vining shook his hand.
Kissick did the same.
Chase unbolted the front gate.
Kissick exited in front of Vining. The paparazzi outside had left, as had the mob on the adjoining street.
As they headed toward the freeway, Vining asked, “Did you notice anything strange about that last interaction in the foyer?”
“What wasn’t strange about it?”
“I mean, between Chase and Sinclair LeFleur.”
Kissick raised an eyebrow. “As pregnant as she is? You think there’s something going on?”
“Something’s going on all right. He’s in love with her.”
EIGHTEEN
John Chase returned to the house, securing the multiple locks on the front door. He checked the windows and began making his way through the northern wing, following his nightly routine.
Gig Towne stepped into the corridor from the media room, where he had been waiting in the dark.
Chase was startled, but managed not to show it. “Hi, Gig. Just doing my rounds. All is well. Paparazzi have split.”
“Good.” Gig casually slipped his hands into his slacks pockets but his demeanor wasn’t relaxed. “What a shock, hearing that my friend Tink was found floating in her pool just after getting that terrible news about Trendi. I’m going to wait to tell Sinclair about Tink. She’s so upset over Trendi, I don’t think she could handle another blow.”
“Got it.”
“Your Pasadena police colleagues, Detectives Vining and Kissick, were extremely interested in Trendi. They even had an old photo of her with a couple of girlfriends. Strange.”
Chase remained expressionless.
“Did they show it to you?”
He lied. “No.”
“Any idea why they were so interested in Trendi? I don’t see any connection to Tink’s death in Pasadena.”
“I couldn’t say, Gig. That’s above my pay grade.”
“Right.” Gig laughed. “Your pay grade.” He gave Chase a playful punch on the arm. “You were friendly with Trendi, right?”
“Sure.”
“Any idea what she was doing with Vince Madrigal?”
“No clue.”
“Madrigal had a list of enemies as long as my arm. I think someone came to kill him, and Trendi was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Chase’s face betrayed the fact that he doubted the story.
“Have you heard something?”
“This is off the record, but I have a friend who has friends in the LAPD who say that it looks like Trendi and Madrigal killed each other.”
“What?” Gig looked aghast. “Trendi kill somebody? No way.”
“She shot him. Could have been self-defense.”
“How did she die?”
“He stabbed her in the belly.”
Gig wheeled around. “Oh, man. That’s a bad way to go.” He rubbed his face. “Wow.”
“I wonder if she was using again and Madrigal supplied her.”
“That must be it. Guess it’ll come out in the toxicology tests. What set her off? Was she upset by anything that you know of?”
Chase shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Her mother would like to know what really happened. I talked to her earlier today. Even though she was the reason Trendi ran away from home and ended up on the streets.”
Chase nodded, waiting to be released.
Gig gave him a piercing look. “So you don’t know anything else about what happened to Trendi?”
“No, sir.”
After an awkward moment, Gig again punched Chase’s arm. “John, anything you can find out through your…network, I’d be appreciative. Very appreciative.”
Chase continued nodding. “Yes, sir.”
Gig turned and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction.
Chase was glad to hear Gig’s footsteps fade. He continued checking doors and windows and entered the kitchen. Gig and Sinclair’s personal chef had left for the day. Chase opened one of the two refrigerators and looked through the well-organized glass containers with labels describing the contents taped to the front. Plastic food-storage containers were forbidden in the house, as Gig and Sinclair believed they leached toxic chemicals.
He took out a container of meatballs and raised the glass lid. He would have dug in with his fingers, but he knew the kitchen was one of the areas monitored by the closed-circuit television that security-obsessed Gig had installed. He grabbed a fork and a plate and scooped meatballs onto it. He ate them cold, shoving them into his mouth whole. The chef always left some in the fridge because she knew Chase liked them.
He put the plate and fork into one of the two dishwashers and headed through a door off the kitchen and down a narrow staircase to the basement. The prior owners had turned the large space into a garage for an antique car collection. The house was built on a sloping hill, permitting one side of the basement to open to the outside, accessing the private road that went through the property.
Gig had redesigned the space, building a full gym that would rival any commercial one, a wine cellar, and a massage and meditation room. After Sinclair had become pregnant, part of the area had been taken over for the birthing room.
Chase took his time going through the subterranean rooms, checking the narrow windows near the ceiling along the outside wall. He looked through a window in the steel door to the birthing room and didn’t see anyone there. He pulled down on the industrial door handle and went inside.
The pool where Sinclair would give birth was recessed into the ground. It was eight feet square, three feet deep, and lined with white tiles. There were built-in benches beneath the waterline. It was filled with purified water that was maintained at 98.6 degrees. The area around the pool had a slip-free textured surface. The floor in the rest of the room was of bleached wood planks. There were no rugs that would collect dust.
The other side of the room was furnished like a living room, in calming shades of sage green and tan. An adjustable bed was made up with fine cotton linens and blankets—nothing synthetic—for baby and parents to rest after the birth. A flat-screen television was mounted to a wall. Wireless headsets were plugged into chargers. Silence would be maintained throughout the labor and delivery.
Behind a curtain attached to a rod by rings was a fully equipped area set up for a medical emergency.
Chase hated this place. He hated the flagrant waste to have gone to all this expense buildi
ng this facility, which would be used for a few hours and maybe just once. Gig was an avowed humanitarian and philanthropist. Sure, he’d done a lot of good with the fortune he’d amassed, but Chase wondered what the public would think if they saw this side of him. His publicists were already working overtime doing damage control after his appearances on The Tonight Show and Ellen, during which he was wacky, and not in a funny-ha-ha way.
That was the other thing this room represented for Chase. It was brick-and-mortar evidence that Gig Towne was nuts. The public would never find out. His inner circle was loyal and protective. If loyalty hadn’t sprung spontaneously from within their hearts, Gig’s attorneys imposed a facsimile of it from the outside.
None of this was Sinclair’s doing. She’d gone along at first, lured into Gig’s world by the white-hot glare of his fame and the seductiveness of his charm. She’d told Chase she’d felt as if she was walking deeper and deeper into a hall of mirrors. What had started as exciting, edgy fun had turned into a nightmare.
Chase stood at the edge of the pool and looked at the built-in tile chair where, any day now, Sinclair would give birth. Organic cotton cushions filled with buckwheat hulls were stacked in a stainless steel cart nearby.
The other basement rooms were always chilly—suitable for the wine cellar and the gym—but this room was kept at a comfortable seventy-two degrees. Chase knew a lot about this room. He knew that it was one of the few places on the property that was not monitored by hidden CCTV cameras.
Through the window in the door, he glimpsed an apparition of a milky-white face surrounded by a cloud of black hair. The door opened and Sinclair LeFleur padded across the floor as fast as she could manage, her legs forced wide with the baby, the soft fabric of her white dress billowing.
Chase’s long legs reached her in a few steps. He took her into his arms.
Her face was streaked with tears. “Oh, John.”
He wiped her flushed cheeks with his fingertips. He wanted to kiss her, but didn’t. He couldn’t cross that line. Not yet. He was hopeful that there would come a time when they would be together. It wasn’t unheard of, the bodyguard and his charge falling in love. She hadn’t expressed any feelings toward him beyond his being her trusted friend and confidant, and she wouldn’t do so because it was inappropriate. He respected her for that. Still, he saw in her eyes that her feelings went deeper.
“Sinclair, were you careful?”
“Yes. I came around the back, like you said. No one saw. I barely have a moment alone anymore. I thought I was just being paranoid, but lately, everywhere I turn, there’s Paula. I’m free of her for a while. She left for her scrying class.”
“Scrying?”
“Learning to see visions in a crystal ball or water. The past, present, and future.”
Chase didn’t comment.
“I told Paula that I was really tired. I stuffed my bed with pillows and my wig.” She had a natural-hair wig that looked just like her own hair that she wore for public appearances if her hair wasn’t cooperating. “Gig’s on the phone in his office. I heard him in there laughing. Laughing!” She released him and turned away, her hand over her mouth. “Trendi. I can’t believe it.”
His fingers tingled with the memory of her soft skin. “Look, Sinclair.” He was calm and direct. “Trendi had a heart of gold, but she was a drug addict.”
“She worked every day to stay clean.”
“Once an addict, always an addict. Trendi would have agreed. All addicts aren’t strung out in crack houses. They can hide it, often for a long time. Trendi had a volatile personality. It had gotten her into trouble before. She saw herself as a rebel. Who knows what she got into with Vince Madrigal?”
“That awful Vince Madrigal, of all people. None of it makes any sense.” A sob burst from her. After a moment, she turned to face him. “I know what you’re thinking. I was wrong to tell Trendi about our plan, but she was my friend. I wonder if she was killed because she said she’d help us.”
Chase wished Sinclair hadn’t confided in Trendi, but the damage was done. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but instead laced his fingers and tapped his thumbs together. The ringing in his ears that had finally subsided to a persistent hum again started to escalate. He hid his distress from her.
Sniffling, she took an embroidered handkerchief from her dress bodice and blew her nose. “Gig says he talked to Trendi’s mother. She never had anything to do with Trendi. Trendi had little love for her, that’s for sure. But she kept the connection with her mom, making sure she called her on her birthday and Mother’s Day and sending her money. So what does her mother want? Money. Gig told her we’d pay for Trendi’s funeral. You know what she told him? Have her cremated and send me the money you would have spent on the funeral.”
Sinclair laughed through her tears without mirth. She sat on a glider, lowering herself with hands on both chair arms. “Those other two detectives, who were they? Why were they here?”
“Gig will talk to you about that.”
She turned her dark eyes on him. “I want you to tell me now.”
He again gritted his teeth, making a dimple form in his cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”
She balled her fists and pounded the chair arms. “I hate being patronized like this! Why does everyone act like I’m going to fall apart? Nobody knows the real me. Don’t worry. I’ll behave appropriately when Gig breaks the news. I’ve gotten good at putting on an act.”
He took in a breath and told her about Tink Engleford’s death and the photograph with Trendi, Cheyenne, and the girl named Fallon.
After her initial shock, Sinclair listened to his recounting of the events with steely detachment. “Poor Tink. She was a nice lady. Cheyenne had been here before but I don’t remember Trendi mentioning a friend named Fallon. All these tragedies seem tied together somehow. It confirms that I’m right to be scared.”
Her eyes lingered on the pool. The surface of the water rippled as the filter cleaned it.
He saw where she was looking. “Gig and this Berryhill birthing bullshit. I know Georgia’s your friend and all, but I’m sorry…Some things you don’t fool around with.”
“I brought up to Gig again about having the baby at Huntington Hospital and having her delivered by the obstetricians my girlfriends swear by. Dr. Janus could even be the attending physician, but Gig won’t budge.”
“But this is your baby too.”
“John, I’m so afraid all the time for me and my baby.” She looked at a schoolhouse clock on the wall. “I’d better get out of here.”
She started to press herself up from the glider.
He moved to help her up with his hands beneath her armpits.
They were facing each other, standing close.
“John, nothing’s changed, has it? Even with what happened to Trendi, it’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”
“Sinclair, you’ll have your baby in the hospital like we planned. Nothing’s going to happen to you or your baby.” He squeezed her delicate fingers. “It’s going to be all right. I’ll make sure of it.”
She put her hand against his cheek. “You’re sweet. I wish you could save me. It feels very much like it’s all beyond our control.”
NINETEEN
At the PPD station, Kissick dropped Vining at her Jeep. He took off to observe Tink’s autopsy at the county coroner building east of downtown L.A. Vining promised to return to the station and work on their reports once she got things squared away at home. Emily had sent her a text message that she’d had her friend’s mother drop her off at Granny’s, as Patsy had summoned her there.
At Granny’s, the front drapes were still drawn, but it looked as if all the lights in the house were on. Granny’s Delta 88 was in the same spot in the driveway. Parked at the curb in front were two cars Vining didn’t recognize, a Toyota Prius and a newer Acura sedan.
As soon as Vining opened her car door, she heard music and laughter. Walking up the front path, she recognized the song that wa
s playing. It was one she remembered her mother singing along with when she’d tune to KRTH, K-Earth 101, the oldies station, in the car. She heard her mother’s voice ring out above the din coming from the house, “I was sooo in love with Davy.”
Vining rang the bell and knocked on the front door, but no one responded. She peered through the folds of the lacy curtains that covered the narrow windows in the door and saw shapes moving. People dancing. In unison, several female voices sang but mostly shouted, “I’m a believer…”
A woman yelled over the music, “Every Monday night at seven-thirty, we were all glued to Vicki’s TV. Remember?”
Vining pressed the thumb latch on the front door handle. The door was unlocked. She opened it to see her mother, her two girlhood friends, Vicki and Maria Alicia, and Emily and Granny too dancing in the middle of the living room. All the furniture had been pushed out of the way. Emily was synchronizing her movements with Vicki and Maria Alicia, who were twirling their hands. Vicki, who’d always been the group leader, starting moving her arms as if she was swimming while shimmying her body. The others followed.
Patsy, as expected, was doing her own thing—a frenetic version of the pony, pumping her knees, toes pointed, imitating a prancing horse. Granny was stepping side to side and clapping her hands. Maria Alicia, still the dark, sultry, artistic one who had always had leading roles in the school plays, was by far the best dancer.
Patsy’s vinyl record albums were strewn across the floor beneath a console that held Granny’s stereo. Propped on top was the one that was playing now: “More of the Monkees.” Red plastic drink cups were scattered around, as were bowls of potato chips, Cheetos, Fritos, dips, and paper plates with the remnants of pizza. Apart from the recent clutter, the room appeared to have been dusted and vacuumed. The place smelled of booze.
Vicki spotted Vining first and boogied over to her, pulling her by the hand into the group. Granny drifted away to collapse onto her Naugahyde recliner. Patsy gave Vining a tipsy hug and wet smack on the cheek, as did the other women. Emily waved before following Vicki’s lead, drawing her index and middle fingers over her eyes, as if making a mask. Maria Alicia, always the hippie, her thick hair still falling to her waist, the black now streaked with gray, only half-jokingly pointed at the gun on Vining’s belt and made the shaming gesture of rubbing one index finger across the top of the other.
