Born To Be Wild

by Catherine Coulter

  Thirty minutes later, Daniel Vasquez walked into Mary Lisa’s living room to see a dozen people-old, young, three teenagers-all hovering over her, one offering her tea or coffee, another holding out a glass that looked like it held either water or straight vodka, all of them talking at once. He recognized a couple of TV actors. Mary Lisa wasn’t saying anything, only looking at the cup she was holding between her hands. He saw Carlo, who’d had his birthday blast on the beach recently. And he recognized MacKenzie Corman, the wannabe actress, mainly because he recognized Honey Boy, her white toy poodle, who was sitting in Mary Lisa’s lap, one of his small paws on her forearm. She didn’t live in the Colony. How had she managed to get past Chad at the kiosk? Then he looked at the bright pink tube top she was wearing, the wonderful cleavage on display, and shook his head at himself. The house was nearly full. Did the woman collect people?

  Mary Lisa looked up at him, gave him a ghastly smile. “You made really good time. Thank you for coming.”

  Detective Vasquez cleared his throat. Everyone looked up, including Lou Lou, who said, “Dan-Detective Vasquez! Glad you’re here. Come in. Okay, everybody, you’ve all got to go. Everything’ll be okay now. He’s the police. Thank you for coming over.”

  Once she’d herded everyone out of the house, she turned and said quickly, “Danny, this isn’t good. Now some weirdo’s calling her, maybe the same guy-we’ve got to get him.”

  The place cleared out amazingly fast, Detective Vasquez thought. He waited until it was blessedly quiet. He looked at Mary Lisa. She was pale and looked pinched, but he saw anger beneath the surface, bubbling hot. That was good. He sat beside her and said, “You draw quite a crowd.”

  “News travels fast in the Colony.”

  There was a knock on the door. Detective Vasquez raised his hand. “Let me get it, okay?”

  They watched him walk to the front door and open it about six inches. They heard men’s voices but couldn’t make out their words.

  Mary Lisa’s jaw nearly hit the carpet when the chief of police of Goddard Bay, Jack Wolf, walked through the door.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Before Superman, Christopher Reeve played Ben on Love of Life.

  Mary Lisa jumped to her feet. “Whatever are you doing here? Is something wrong? Is my dad okay?”

  “Your dad is fine. He sends his love and told me he was going to pin your ears back for not telling him about this mess.”

  “I didn’t want to worry him, didn’t want to worry anybody.”

  “Yeah? Well, you told John and he told me. I called down here and spoke to Detective Vasquez.”

  He walked to her and stopped about six inches from her nose. “You look pale enough to fade out. Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”

  Lou Lou said, “The jerk called her a little while ago. Who are you, again?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Mary Lisa. “This is Chief of Police Jack Wolf from Goddard Bay.”

  “You’re the rottweiler?”

  He grinned, a big one that changed his face entirely. “Yes, it sounds like that would be me.” He shook hands with Lou Lou.

  “Sit down, Chief Wolf.” Mary Lisa waved to one of the love seats. “Would you care for something to drink?”

  Jack looked about her bright living room for a moment before he selected a green-and-white-striped love seat. “You don’t have to be a hostess, Mary Lisa. Tell me what happened here.”

  “But how did you get past Chad?”

  “I showed him my badge, gave him your name and a look that clearly translated as official business, and he let me through without a single question.”

  Mary Lisa gave him a long look, then turned to Lou Lou. “Lou Lou, would you please take Detective Vasquez out on the deck, point out Big Dume to him?”

  “But-”

  “Please, Detective. I need a moment with Chief Wolf.”

  Once they were out of hearing, Jack said, “Okay, now what would you like to say to me?”

  “I’d like you to tell me why you came down here. You’ve never seemed to like me. I didn’t imagine you’d care if some loon ran me down or not.”

  “Actually, I was tied up until this morning or I would have been here sooner. I called Lost Hills Station and spoke to Detective Vasquez, and he told me to come on down.” He sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “Listen, you’ve got family and a lot of friends in Goddard Bay who care about you, John included, and that makes you my responsibility as well.”

  “Whether you like me or not?”

  “Liking you has nothing to do with anything, Ms. Beverly. Besides, John couldn’t stop singing your praises. He wasn’t happy about your kissing him off, but he admired you for doing it. He kept going and going until I wanted to punch him out. Then I thought about it awhile and decided that maybe you’ve grown up, maybe you wouldn’t be pouring sugar into anyone’s gas tank anymore if they crossed you.”

  Her face turned red as a Malibu sunset, not due for another four hours. “Crossed me? Like that even comes close to what that moron did. Dammit, I found my supposed fiancé in bed with my sister, you jerk! He was engaged to me, and he betrayed me. Thinking back on it, I should have shoved a potato up his exhaust pipe, maybe it would have blown him up!”

  Jack tapped his fingertips on his knees. “Okay, so there was provocation, but it was a new Beemer, Ms. Beverly, and you destroyed the engine on that fine machine.”

  She threw up her hands. “Men!”

  Suddenly, he grinned. “Okay, so the night in jail was a little bit overboard. Let me tell you, your dad climbed my frame up one side and down the other. Does that make you feel better?”

  “Was that supposed to be an apology?”

  “It’s close, isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  Jack’s dark brow shot up.

  Mary Lisa threw up her hands. “Men and your genetic bond to machines-none of you can get over what I did to his precious car, a stupid machine, dammit. Well, to be honest here, that’s exactly why I did it.” She drew a deep breath. “So did you arrest one of the Hildebrands for killing Jason Maynard?”

  “Why do you think it was one of the Hildebrands?”

  Mary Lisa said patiently, “The person who did it was obviously very angry. A stranger or a simple acquaintance wouldn’t get that worked up, would they? Who was it?”

  “His father-in-law, Milo Hildebrand.”

  She nodded. “Milo. What was the motive?”

  “It was all about money, not about any cheating Jason was doing on his wife. Jason had embezzled over three hundred thousand dollars from his father-in-law’s company, and Milo found out about it. Milo confronted him in a rage, then followed him back to his house with a golf driver sitting beside him on the front seat. Since Milo stole it the day before the murder, it shows premeditation-lucky for him we don’t have the death penalty in Oregon.”

  “Where’d he steal it? How did you find out about it?”

  Jack grinned. “In big cities most crimes are solved by informants. In small towns, it’s a matter of talking to people. One of the attendants who works in the men’s dressing room at the club saw Milo take a golf club from a locker that isn’t his. He didn’t really think about it at the time, thought he was simply borrowing it, but he did think about it hard after I interviewed him along with everyone else who worked at the club. He came to me Sunday morning, said he’d seen Mr. Hildebrand take a Callaway driver.

  “We matched the murder weapon up to the clubs we found in the locker. Milo surprised me-he kept screaming that his wife did it and ran. I had to shoot him in the leg so we could take him into custody. Unfortunately, he hasn’t confessed. He continues to blame his wife, keeps swearing he stole the club for her but had no idea what she wanted to do with it.”

  “That makes a whole lot of sense.”

  “Oh yeah. Milo claims his wife found out Jason was sleeping around on their daughter and that’s why she killed him. He claims he kept quiet to protect her. He claims he did
n’t know about the embezzlement.”

  “You have proof he did know?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Poor Mrs. Hildebrand.”

  “That’s the truth. From all I can find out, Milo’s controlled her for all of the thirty-five years of their married life, told her what to spend, where to spend it, how to dress, how to behave. And now he’s trying to implicate her in the murder.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t imagine that. And it was all for money, only money.”

  Jack shrugged. “Everyone has a different breaking point, and for Milo, it was rank betrayal by his son-in-law, the ultimate sin. The fact remains that he did it. It’s over.”

  “So you solved the first murder in Goddard Bay-in well under a week.”

  Jack shrugged again, but Mary Lisa could swear she saw a stain of red on his cheekbones. It humanized him.

  He said abruptly, “If you’ll let me, I’m here to help you now, Ms. Beverly.”

  “Since you’re here to help me, why don’t you call me Mary Lisa?”

  He nodded. “Tell me about this phone call, Ms.-Mary Lisa-exactly what he said, what he sounded like to you. Was he excited? Enraged? Did you hear anything in the background?”

  Mary Lisa held up her hand. “Okay, you’re in cop mode.”

  He grinned, and again it surprised her. All she’d ever seen on him was a hard, detached face, as if he didn’t want to be in the same room with her, or in the same room with most people. She wanted to smile back, but she thought of the man on the phone and simply couldn’t. “He said, exactly, ‘Shame on you, sleeping with a married man. Maybe next time you won’t be so lucky.’ That was all. He hung up. His voice was whispery, sort of hoarse. I’m sure it was a guy, but he didn’t sound familiar, and he didn’t sound particularly angry, sort of world-weary, like he’d expected all this, which sounds odd, but it’s true. I didn’t hear anything in the background. I couldn’t tell how old he was-not real young and not real old either, I guess. I might recognize his voice if I heard it again, though. The only thing I’m sure of is that he wasn’t an orangutan.”

  “Okay, that’s good. Do you have any ideas on what you might have done to draw a crazy like this to you?”

  “What I might have done?”

  “You’re an actress, Ms.-Mary Lisa. A celebrity. Most young women can kiss off a guy at a party, or spend lots of cash shopping on Rodeo Drive, and no one notices. For you, it’s different. Someone has been watching, and that someone went over the edge.”

  She shook her head, her lips tightly seamed, until she interrupted him, her voice as cold as her mom’s. “You’re right, Chief Wolf-”

  “Since I’m trying to help you, I guess you’d better call me Jack.”

  She couldn’t say why, but it simply stunned her. How could this man possibly be simply Jack to her? “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Like what?”

  She waved her hands in his face. “Like you’re human, like you might consider me human too.”

  “All right, you’re angry with me. Go on. I believe you were about to pin my ears back.”

  “Yes, I am. You’re acting as if I’m a party girl, without any morals or sense. Most actresses, myself included, work hard, enjoy their friends, spend most of their time at home. None of my actor friends go boozing at wild parties and I think I’ve only been on Rodeo Drive one time-to buy myself a real pearl necklace for winning my second Emmy.”

  “So, cutting through all that, you mean to say you haven’t a clue who’s doing this and you can’t think of any way you could have brought it on.”

  “Would you like a soda? Lower your blasted eyebrow, Chie-Jack. I’m thirsty.”

  Venting at him had helped her get her balance back, he thought as he watched her walk to her kitchen. He followed her, and stopped dead, blown away by the magnificent view. Her cottage sat right on the beach. Not fifty feet away the Pacific waves lapped gently onto the sand, and a brilliant sun shone through the few wispy clouds that dotted the sky. He saw a few teenagers, her neighbors, he supposed, since this was a gated community, mostly lolling about, some playing volleyball, others simply stretched out on towels, sunning, the girls dressed in little designer swimsuits.

  He said, “I love the ocean, always have. Unfortunately, my house is a bit too far inland to hear the waves. I love that sound, don’t you?”

  Again, she stared at him.

  “Mary Lisa, I’m just a guy, like any other guy, and I like the ocean. I’d like it if I could sit beside Daniel and Lou Lou, feet up on the deck railing, just basking like they are.”

  She didn’t look happy and so he said simply, “I also happen to be a cop. It’s my job, like yours is being an actress. We need to get past what happened in Goddard Bay-you did something stupid three years ago and I’ll admit it, I got the wrong impression of you.”

  “You treated me like a juvenile delinquent, a stupid teenager.”

  “Yep, I did. Even your father couldn’t make me see you were so hurt you’d lashed out. Okay, the truth here-I’d just come to Goddard Bay and been elected chief of police. Then this ditsy girl comes along who destroys a valuable vehicle, and isn’t at all sorry about what she’s done. It’s no real excuse, but I was coming off a really miserable divorce.” He looked like he wanted to shut up and not say another word.

  “Go ahead, spit it out, Jack.”

  “I guess I put you in the same boat with my ex-wife. She burned me bad, Mary Lisa. No excuse for what I did to you, but there you have it. I’m sorry.”

  She gave him a brilliant smile. “Now that’s an apology I can live with.” She handed him a Diet Dr Pepper, opened one for herself. She clicked her can to his. “Thanks for coming down to help me, Jack.”

  “Yeah, you’re welcome. You really did kiss off John because of Kelly, didn’t you?”

  “I wasn’t about to hurt her like Monica had hurt me. No way.”

  He nodded, drank more of his soda.

  “Ah, so John made you think I’m selfless? Noble?”

  “Nah, but he made me see you’re okay.”

  “Nice to hear that from a yahoo chief of police from the boondocks.”

  For the first time, they smiled at each other.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Ricky Martin played Miguel, a hunky, world-famous singer, on General Hospital.

  BORN TO BE WILD

  Thursday morning

  Sunday looks up to see her mother, Lydia Cavendish, sweep into her office, while her secretary, Ellis, waves his hands ineffectively behind her. “It’s all right, Ellis. No one can stop a moving train.” She waits until he closes the door, rises slowly but doesn’t come around her desk. She’s wearing a black suit with an open white silk blouse, a black ribbon choker around her neck. Her skirt is short, her long legs ending in black stiletto heels. Her red hair is in her signature chignon, two curls dangling in front of her black earrings. She arches an eyebrow and looks impatient. She says sarcastically, “To what do I owe this pleasure, Mother? Last thing I knew, you weren’t speaking to me. Are you planning to use sign language?”

  Lydia Cavendish is wearing a white suit with a bright red silk camisole that shows a good deal of cleavage. She looks more flamboyant than elegant, on the voluptuous side, and as arrogant as her eldest daughter. She’s wearing flashy diamonds at her ears, throat, and wrist. “You needn’t be so snide, Sunday,” she says and tosses her purse on a chair.

  Sunday crosses her arms over her chest, remains behind her desk. “I’m very busy, Mother, though you hardly seem to have noticed I’ve even come back from that boarding school in Austria. At least you came yourself, rather than sending another of those little psychos you seem to collect. By the way, how is Bernard? In jail yet?”

  Lydia walks to the sideboard, pours herself a big shot of brandy, gulps it down. “You were better off in Europe.” She throws back her head, closes her eyes. “You needn’t bother sleeping with Damian. He’s not worth it.” Sunday is shocked, opens her mouth, but says no
thing as she realizes her mother is very upset, almost ready to break down.

  Alarmed, Sunday walks around her desk, but no closer. “What’s wrong, Mother? Has Susan done something? Damian? You needn’t cry about Bernard, he’s a dishonest creep and we all know that now. You’re far better off without him.”

  “No, this has nothing to do with Susan or with Bernard.” She’s silent again, looks around Sunday’s office, frowns a bit. “How I hate this, Sunday. I hoped you would never know. He swore he would never come back. But he’s here.”

  Sunday looks down at her watch. “I’m very busy, Mother. Who’s here?”

  “I didn’t have to think about him for a very long time, but lately I see his face all over the TV, he’s gotten so popular, and then of course I have to think about him. And now he’s in town. He’s here. The bastard.”

  “Mother, who are you talking about? Stop being such a drama queen and tell me!”

  Sunday stares at her mother, her head cocked a bit to the side. And stares, stares-

  “Clear!”

  Three minutes later, the women’s makeup touched up again, Todd Bickly, the stage manager, called out from the wing, “Ready, continue the scene.”

  Sunday is staring at her mother. “What is this all about, Mother? Please tell me who it is you’re talking about.”

  Lydia draws a big breath, fans her hands in front of her, her diamonds winking in the light. “Your father, Sunday. Your father is demanding to see you.”

  Sunday leans against her desk, her arms folded over her chest. She says slowly, eyeing her mother, “My father’s dead. He died when I was only a year old. He was doing business in Cambodia, and he was kidnapped and killed.”

  “Yes, that’s what I told you. He was with the Rand Corporation, and he was indeed in Cambodia, that was true. But he didn’t get kidnapped nor did he die there, more’s the pity.” Lydia picks up a crystal glass and hurls it against the far wall. A painting tilts at the impact.