Reel Murder

by Kennedy, Mary

  My mind was playing over possible interview questions when a car came tearing out of the blackness, rounding the corner like it was at the Daytona 500 tryouts. Are they drunk? Are they nuts? A big warning light flashed like a strobe in my brain when I realized the car was headed straight toward me.

  My brain seized and I flashed back to a college Physics class. I was seeing the second law of thermodynamics in action. Also known as the Pauli exclusion principle. Two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time.

  What did that mean for me? Simple. Either the car was going to be a hunk of twisted metal, or I was going to be roadkill. Realistically, I’d put my money on the latter.

  I have to tell you, no matter what Sylvia Browne says, my whole life didn’t flash in front of me. There was no blurry montage of my first day in kindergarten or my first kiss with Harold Feddermarker, a dweeb I dated in junior high. Trust me, there are some life memories you want to forget.

  What was going on here? I was pissed off. Big-time. I jumped to the side just as the car whizzed past me. I tried to send a death glare to the driver, but the windows were tinted so I contented myself with shaking my fist in the air.

  I decided it would be a good idea to get out of there ASAP, just in case some other Mario Andretti types were lurking around. That’s when I heard it. The screech of brakes, followed by the sound of an engine revving up, pushed to the max. It suddenly dawned on me.

  The driver was coming back to take another pass at me.

  The good news is that I wasn’t mad anymore. I didn’t have time to be. I was scared out of my wits, and I started running blindly, tripping along in my silly heels. An odd image fluttered in my brain. I thought of a line from a spaghetti western: “He died with his boots on.” In my case, they’d say, “She died with her stilettos on.”

  Either way, I’d be dead.

  I yanked off the shoes and finally came to my senses. If someone was out to run me over, why was I making their job easier by staying in the center of the aisle?

  I ducked back between the parked cars, hoping I could stay out of sight until the maniac driver gave up the chase. I had a better look at the car as it whizzed past again; it looked like a late-model Mercedes. My heart took a painful lurch and a cold knot formed in my stomach. Was this personal or was it some new street game? Kill the pedestrian?

  I knew I had to keep my wits about me. After all, I had the edge, I decided, hunkering down next to a navy blue BMW. I was on foot, and my attacker—whoever it was—was stuck in a car. As long as I stayed out of the aisle and out of sight, the game would be over. So eventually, they’d give up and leave the garage.

  At least that’s what I was telling myself.

  Then there was another sickening screech of brakes and the Mercedes shimmied to a halt, rocking slightly. Uh-oh. My heart was hammering in my chest and the skin was tingling on the back of my neck. I hunkered down even lower and watched as the driver’s door opened. I knew I had to stay calm even though my heart was thumping like a rabbit’s.

  The driver was getting out. It was a woman, but the garage was far too shadowy for me to make out anything else. She left the motor running and the driver’s door open. Then she advanced on me.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she said softly. This was beginning to have a Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte feel to it and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. A very bad sign. Was this some lunatic, an act of random violence, or was this personal?

  “Maggie, I know you’re there,” the voice went on.

  Maggie? Okay, now I finally got the message. This was personal.

  “There’s no point in hiding because I’m going to ge-e-e-e-t you. One way or the o-o-o-other.” The voice slithered through my brain, reminding me of every B horror movie I’ve ever seen. She was half singing to herself; clearly she was a wack job. Something was familiar about her voice, but I couldn’t quite place it. An idea bubbled in the back of my brain and suddenly broke the surface. Suddenly I got it. This was a trained voice, a cultivated voice.

  An actor’s voice. But whose?

  I didn’t have time to ponder my own question, because when I took another peek, the woman was just a few yards away, moving slowly toward the BMW. I still couldn’t make out who she was, but suddenly that didn’t matter anymore, because something else grabbed my attention.

  She was holding a big, shiny gun.

  Chapter 33

  Time for evasive action before this Joan Crawford wannabe blew my brains out. Very quietly, I dropped to my knees and slithered under the BMW. I stayed perfectly still, listening as her footsteps echoed in the parking garage bouncing off the cement block walls.

  She wouldn’t think to look under a parked car, would she? I turned my head to the side and nearly gasped. I’d left my shoes, the killer stilettos, next to the BMW. I could have cried in frustration. Instead, I carefully inched one hand out and grabbed the offending shoes, being careful not to scratch them on the concrete floor and laid them on top of my chest.

  Success. For the moment at least.

  Mommie Dearest was still out prowling around the parking garage, and from the sound of her footsteps, I decided that she’d moved further down the aisle. Should I try to make a break for it?

  A tempting idea, but I decided against it. After all, I was perfectly safe where I was, and she’d left her car door open with the motor running. That told me she’d be giving up the search at any moment and exiting the garage. Then I could make my getaway, presumably with my head and brains still intact.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. For some reason, I thought of Lark and her theories about cosmic harmony and yin and yang. According to Lark, if the universe gives you a gift (providing me with a cozy refuge under the BMW), it immediately tilts the other way, giving you a challenge or major test. Or maybe even a disaster.

  I smiled to myself. Sometimes you have to take things at face value and I didn’t believe any cosmic disaster would happen to me in the next five seconds.

  Except it could and it did.

  A loud chirp, enough to wake the dead. My cell phone!

  I nearly jumped out of my skin, half sitting up and banging my head on the chassis. Why hadn’t I put it on mute? No time to worry about that at the moment, because now I was front and center in Miss Wack Job’s scopes.

  “There you are, sweetie!” I heard her heels tap-tapping as she hurried over. She reached under the car and gave my arm a vicious tug. “Do you want to come out, or shall I shoot you right where you are?” A high-pitched cackle, almost maniacal.

  “Maybe we could talk about this,” I gasped, wriggling out from the under the car. Hey, I’m a psychologist and I’ve had crisis intervention training. There was a slim chance I could talk Ms. Crazy out of killing me. It was odd that she knew my name, but maybe I could figure out what she wanted, and find a way to talk her out of cold-blooded murder.

  “Come out slowly and put your back against the car,” she barked, as I scrambled out.

  I wriggled out from under the car, and slowly stood up to face my unknown assailant.

  Except she wasn’t unknown.

  It was Sandra Michaels, the “formerly fat actress.”

  “Sandra?” I said, as if my eyes were deceiving me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came here to kill you,” she said, a wide smile spreading across her face. She leveled the gun at me.

  So much for my crisis intervention training. I couldn’t think of any deep psychological insights to offer. I could ask her why she wanted to kill me, but I figured that might annoy her, and she might shoot me on the spot. Maybe a diversionary tactic? Could I stall for time?

  “You know, a gunshot is going to make a hell of a noise in this enclosed space,” I pointed out. “The sound will go ricocheting off the walls and you’ll be surrounded by security guys.”

  “Ya think?” she asked sarcastically. She reached into her bag and pulled out something that looked like a scope. “That’s why I b
rought a silencer.”

  “Good thinking,” I said weakly. “You must have been a Girl Scout.” It’s always a good idea to reinforce a patient’s ego strengths, but maybe I was taking psychoanalytic theory a little too far. “And you’re shooting me because—”

  “Because it’s the only way to shut you up.”

  “Ah-hah.” I hate it when murderers make perfect sense. It’s so hard to come up with a really good comeback. “Here’s a thought. I could just be quiet, I could promise not to speak again for the rest of my life. I could take a vow of silence like one of those Carmelite nuns. Do you remember Audrey Hepburn in A Nun’s Story? She had to have her head shaved, and all that beautiful chestnut hair was falling around her—”

  “Shut up!” Sandra yelled. “This is the problem with you shrinks—you talk all the time. I was so sick of listening to you on the set. I had to pretend to eat up all that psychobabble crap you were dishing out.”

  “I thought you found it interesting,” I replied, feeling a little miffed.

  “I had to play the game, sweetie. I knew it was only a matter of time before you realized I killed Adriana.”

  “You killed Adriana?” So my gut instinct had been right; my jaw dropped.

  “I thought the game was up,” she said, faltering for a second. “I figured that hot cop of yours was only a few days away from arresting me.”

  “Rafe?” I laughed. “He didn’t have any idea; you kept everyone in the dark.” Maybe I could string her along and play this out a little. “You know, he’s already given Hank Watson the green light to take the production company back to Hollywood.” I gave her a knowing look. “You could go with them. We can just pretend this never happened. Adriana’s death will end up in a cold case file somewhere.”

  “Hah. Fat chance; you’d never keep your big mouth shut.” She pointed the gun squarely at my chest.

  “Wait!” I pleaded. “I just have two questions. You can grant a dying wish, can’t you?”

  “This better be quick.” She was releasing the safety on the gun.

  “How did you know I was here tonight?”

  “That’s easy. I signed up with Carla’s new management company. She was looking for talent and I wanted to change agencies anyway. She mentioned you’d be at this party at the Delano and I was invited, too. So I followed you from the radio station. It was a no-brainer, Sherlock. You made my job easier when you decided to park here, instead of at the hotel.”

  “Ah, I see.” She leveled the gun at me again.

  “And you killed Adriana, why?” I said, talking quickly.

  “You really don’t know? She was going to blab to the world that I’d had lap band surgery in Copper Canyon, the silly bitch.”

  “She was going to spread a rumor—” I widened my eyes, remembering how Adriana had killed Sidney Carter’s career with a rumor.

  “Oh, it was more than a rumor, sweetie. It was the truth. She was suspicious when I lost the weight so fast so she hired an investigator to do some digging around. He hacked into my credit card charges, and he found out I’d flown down to Mexico and hired a car to take me to the clinic. Once he had that information, it was easy to bribe a staff member to talk about the surgery. Money talks.” She gave a little snort. “Adriana would have done anything to ruin my book deal and my television show. The networks and my publisher thought I did it all with diet and exercise.”

  “So you really did have bariatric surgery,” I said slowly. “I should have figured that one out. You didn’t want to talk about Copper Canyon when I asked you about it.”

  “You’re not much of a detective, are you?” she said, giving a harsh laugh. “Well, none of that matters now,” she said taking a step closer to me.

  And that’s when I moved. Still holding the stilettos at my side, I swung them in a wide arc, connecting solidly with her head. They made a soft whumping sound against her skull, and I thought she was going to go down for the count. But she was stronger than I thought, and instead, she lunged at me, gun in hand.

  “Stop right there, sister!” someone shouted. Sandra turned her head just for a moment, and Vera Mae rushed out of the shadows, heading right toward her.

  “Vera Mae, no! Stay back, she’s got a gun!” I screamed. The gun wavered as a wild-eyed Sandra couldn’t decide which one of us to shoot first. Then Vera Mae stretched her right arm straight out in front of her, and Sandra was enveloped in a cloud of noxious fumes. She shrieked as she sank to the garage floor, her hands covering her eyes.

  Vera Mae was staring in surprise at the canister of pepper spray in her hand. “Wow. I was afraid this stuff might have evaporated. I’ve been carrying it around for at least five years. Looks like it did the trick, though.”

  “Vera Mae,” I said, panting in fright, “do you have something to tie her up with? A belt, anything?”

  “We’ll take care of that, ma’am.” A male voice, low and assured, came from behind me.

  I looked up to see Officers Jiminez and Conrad from the Miami PD moving swiftly toward Sandra, who was trying to scramble to her feet. You’d think they were Crockett and Tubbs, I was so glad to see them. I turned to Vera Mae in surprise.

  “You called them? But how?”

  “I had one of my premonitions,” Vera Mae said. “I started to register us for the Delano party and suddenly I had a real bad feeling that something was going on back here. So I hightailed it back, just in time to see you cornered like a raccoon. I called the Miami PD on my cell, and then I came right over to help you.”

  She smiled at the officers, who had handcuffed a dazed-looking Sandra and were guiding her into the backseat of a cruiser.

  “These two fine young officers happened to be doing crowd control at the Delano. That’s how they got here so fast.” She stared at Officer Conrad, looking tall and rugged in his perfectly pressed uniform. A wistful look passed over her face. “I’m telling you, Maggie, if I were twenty years younger . . .”

  She let her voice trail off and I leaned weakly back against the BMW. “Vera Mae, you’re the best,” I said simply. “You risked your life for me.”

  “Well, we gals have to stick together, hon. WYME just wouldn’t be the same without you, now would it? Who would I have to talk to and make jokes with?” She playfully punched me on the arm, but I noticed that her eyes were misty.

  “Ma’am? Dr. Maggie?” Officer Jiminez said. “Can you come down to the station to make a statement? We need you, too, Miss Vera Mae.”

  “You bet we can, sugar. And don’t forget to call Rafe Martino, up in Cypress Grove,” she added. “After all, this is sort of his case.”

  “I think he already knows,” I said, checking my cell phone. It was still turned on, and that meant Sandra’s whole confession must have been caught on tape.

  And there was Rafe’s number on the display screen.

  “Rafe, are you there?”

  “Always, baby. I called the Miami PD, too. Who’s there with you?”

  “Jiminez and Conrad,” I said. There was a squeal of tires and four more squad cars came racing up next to us. “Oh, wait a minute. A few more cruisers just showed up; there’s probably a dozen cops on the scene now. Hey, it looks like CSI Miami down here. You must have been worried about me.”

  Rafe laughed. “I always have your back, Maggie. Don’t you know that?”

  Chapter 34

  “So let me get this straight,” Lola said. “Frankie Domino never had anything to do with this?”

  It was after midnight and I was sitting at the round oak table in the kitchen with Vera Mae, Lark, Rafe, and Lola. Vera Mae and I had given our statements to the Miami PD a couple of hours earlier and Sandra Michaels was safely in custody. She was charged with Adriana’s death, plus attempted homicide because of her attack on me in the South Beach parking garage.

  “Who’s Frankie Domino?” Vera Mae asked.

  “He’s just a low-level mobster from New York,” I piped up. “Like somebody you’d see on The Sopranos.”

 
“Yes, but you said he was hanging around the set a lot.” She watched as Lark sliced a homemade banana-walnut loaf and helped herself to a piece. “I wonder what was he up to?”

  “I can answer that one,” Rafe said. “It seems that Hank Watson’s production company was about to go under last year and Hank borrowed a big sum of money from the mob to keep it afloat. Not the smartest thing to do but he was desperate. He figured he could pay it all back if Death Watch was a success. That’s what he was counting on. Frankie Domino was hanging around the set to make sure that the film stayed on schedule; he was trying to protect the mob’s investment.”

  “What’s going to happen to Hank’s movie now?” Lark asked.

  “Who knows?” I shrugged. “Sandra’s arrest will create a lot of buzz about Death Watch and Hank may finally have a hit movie. All of Sandra’s scenes have already been shot, so the production can go on without her.”

  “I still can’t get over that girl,” Vera Mae said with a shudder. “She was such a sweet-looking thing; who’d think she was a cold-blooded murderer?”

  “She felt she was going to lose everything if Adriana told the press about her bariatric surgery,” I said. “She saw her whole life going down the tubes—the TV show, the book deal, her chance at big money and a huge career. And Adriana was so jealous and such a mean-spirited person, I can picture her telling the world how Sandra really lost the weight.”

  “Why would anyone take such delight in hurting someone?” Lark asked.

  I shook my head. “You’d have to know Adriana to understand. There was something twisted deep inside her. It would take years of analysis to figure out.”

  “It would be quicker to hire an exorcist,” Vera Mae suggested. “Some people are just plain evil through and through.”

  I thought about Sidney Carter. Adriana’s treatment of him had certainly been diabolical. She’d delighted in spreading a false rumor about him that had ruined his career. I remembered being surprised at how outraged Sandra had seemed on Sidney’s behalf that night at the Seabreeze. Now it made sense to me. Adriana had already ruined one career and Sandra knew she wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. And this time she’d be the one in the crosshairs.