Looks to Die For (30 page)

Growing up, Theresa Bartowski had been one of the little girls on the playground, clambering to the top of the jungle gym and fantasizing about a future where she flew even higher. But pigtailed reveries of Oscar-night speeches and Harry Winston jewels ended in a sordid double death. Nora’s stepdad said Terry wasn’t the same girl once she got to L.A., and I didn’t doubt that. Tasha Barlow breathed her last in the poolside apartment, hoping for a shot at a porn flick. Beautiful, innocent Theresa Bartowski had disappeared from the world long before.

I sighed. Metaphysical musings wouldn’t carry much weight in a courtroom. Nobody was murdered for a metaphor. Terry/Theresa/Tasha Bartowski/Barlow didn’t die because her dream died. Somebody smothered the life out of her. Maybe she’d abandoned her past, but somebody else had decided she wouldn’t have a future.

I pulled a U-turn and headed north out of town. A mile up Highway 93, signs directed me to Twin Falls’ big tourist attraction — the site of one of Evel Knievel’s motorcycle jumps. Actually an aborted jump — he’d never done this one. I dutifully stopped in the parking lot and looked down the five hundred-foot-deep gorge, now irrigated and bright green. More notices directed me down the road where I could apparently gaze at the dirt pile that had been planned as the launchpad. Amazing. A monument to something that hadn’t happened.

I arrived back in the Sun Valley condo before the rest of the family. Half an hour later, clattering in with wet clothes and high spirits, they found me lounging in the living room. Dan stuck his skis against a rack in the foyer and walked stiffly to the sofa. Only the satisfied smile on his face kept me from immediately offering Advil.

“The best day in the history of skiing,” he said happily, settling in with the hot chocolate I held out for him. “But we missed you on the mountain.”

The kids cuddled around him, filling me in on their exploits — Grant soaring over moguls, Ashley and Dan cutting perfect turns together, the whole family taking Jimmy down his first intermediate slope.

“I fell twice, but it’s okay to fall when you’re skiing,” Jimmy said, clearly parroting what the others had told him.

“You just get up again and keep going,” said Dan.

“And I kept going,” said Jimmy proudly.

Ashley’s day had been improved by a dark-haired sixteen-yearold boy who had flirted with her in the lodge during lunch.

“His name’s Nick, he’s from Manhattan, and he goes to a private school called Dalton,” she reported. “I might visit and go to the junior prom with him.”

“Dream on,” said Grant, who was leaning against the back of the sofa.

“No dream. He already text-messaged me,” Ashley said smugly, as if the memo on her Motorola was just the first step to a lingering kiss, a BCBG charmeuse prom dress, and — God forbid — a post-prom breakfast on the beach. I shuddered, wondering when teenage dreams improved life — and when they turned dangerous.

Grant bent forward to stretch out his skiing-constricted quadriceps, then nimbly touched his toes. “I’m going to shower,” he announced, bouncing upright and doing a couple of waist twists before heading to his room.

“Good idea,” said Dan. He stood up with just a little creaking in the knees and, despite obviously aching muscles, scooped up Jimmy from the sofa and swung him onto his shoulder. “Come on, champ. Let’s get you into dry clothes.”

Jimmy giggled happily as they went off, and once all the testosterone had left the room, Ashley took a sip of hot chocolate.

“Think it’d be okay for me to call Nick? And maybe see him tomorrow?” she asked, swirling the cinnamon stick.

“It wouldn’t do any harm,” I said slowly. “But just keep it in perspective. If he’s from New York, you’re probably not going to see him very much after that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Ashley. She licked some whipped cream off the edge of her mug and sat back, curling her legs under her like a contented kitten. Maybe reality didn’t have to be that painful, after all.

“So it was fun today?” I asked, going for the open-ended question.

“Almost felt like we were a regular family again.” She sighed. “I wish we could just stay in Sun Valley and forget all the awful stuff in L.A.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“Daddy seemed happy skiing,” Ashley continued. “You know what I figured out? He wants us to be proud of him. He’s always been the one who saved people and got charity awards and stuff. Everyone admired him. Now all that’s gone. He must feel like less than zero.”

“He does want you to be proud,” I agreed.

“I was remembering that night a while ago when we were eating Chinese food and he made a big deal about getting a book contract. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad at him,” Ashley said ruefully. “Mandy says that whenever a boy’s being a jerk, it’s usually because he’s even more insecure than you are.”

“Mandy’s probably right.”

“You know, it’s not so easy being me these days,” Ashley said, not quite ready to lose the sympathy vote, “but it’s got to be even harder being Daddy.”

I shimmied over on the sofa and put my arm around her. Fourteen wasn’t famous as the age of empathy. But she was doing pretty darn well.

“You’re a great kid,” I said, giving her a hug. “And you’re really growing up.”

“Think so?” Ashley took a final sip of hot chocolate and looked at me over the rim of the mug. She gave a little smile. “Then maybe I’ll meet Nick tomorrow, after all.”

Chapter Thirteen

T
im Riley agreed to talk
to me about Roy Evans and suggested we meet at Club L.A. at 6:15
A.M
. If that was the only time during the day that a big-time TV producer didn’t get disturbed, I was game. But five minutes after I dragged myself into the gym, Tim’s Blackberry started beeping. He apologetically thumbed through the e-mails already pouring in, then quickly called a reporter in Las Vegas to say that, yes, he needed his story edited and mixed immediately. He might use it in that night’s show.

“I know it’s at a strip club, but keep it clean or it’ll never air,” Tim said to the producer. “Network Standards and Practices is now being run by two celibate monks and a kindergarten teacher.”

He took two more calls, then hung up and looked at me with an abashed smile. “Sorry. I guess we should have met at five thirty. Sometimes it’s quieter then.”

“Definitely quieter for me,” I said. “The only sound I make then is snoring. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not on this job.” Tim flashed an appealingly lopsided smile. “The geniuses on the East Coast can’t seem to figure out the three-hour time difference. I should have sent them calculators at Christmas. I just flew back from New York, and I swear I’m not even going to reset my watch.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, taking his arm to study the oversized chronographic timepiece on his wrist. “This Concord could probably monitor ten time zones. And I bet it keeps ticking a thousand feet underwater. Long after your heart has stopped.”

He grinned, then climbed onto a True treadmill and set the digital display for a
CARDIO
-
FIT
workout. “For now, at least, my heart’s still ticking. Mind if we talk and walk?”

“Sure.” I’d come prepared in Nikes and workout garb, so I got onto the treadmill next to his and glanced at Tim out of the corner of my eye. He was tall and lean, with firm-as-steel calf muscles, dark, curly hair, and small rimless glasses. I knew he was smart as a whip, and he looked more New York intellectual than L.A. producer. No wonder Molly adored him. Maybe I could convince them each to stop working for an hour and go out on a real date.

“So I hear you have Roy Evans’s homemade porn tapes,” Tim said, almost immediately adjusting the speed on his treadmill from warm-up walk to jog. A few drops of sweat popped out appealingly on his gray tee. “Do you want to come over to my office and watch them?”

From the elliptical machine across from us, a studly young guy laughed. “Hey, Tim, is that your pickup line now? Come watch porn with me?”

Tim didn’t bother looking up, he just flipped a finger at his friend.

I cranked up my own speed. “I have the tapes but I haven’t seen them yet.”

“Just one more illicit activity in the pathetic portfolio of Roy Evans,” said Tim.

“I know you’re doing an internal investigation. Have you found much on him?” I asked, panting slightly from exertion. Since the night of Dan’s arrest, I hadn’t been exercising — unless you counted endless spinning on a psychic treadmill.

“I don’t want him back on the air — but I’m trying to be fair,” Tim said. “I feel like one of those special prosecutors, because more and more turns up every day. I guess if you look hard enough, you can sink anybody.”

Is that what was happening to Dan? The police were looking hard and working hard to make sure he sank.

“What’s the word on the body they found by Roy’s car?” I asked, surreptitiously lowering the speed on my treadmill. I’d have to count on anxiety to keep me thin.

“The police ruled it foul play. But off the record, the coroner thought there were some indications of suicide.”

“How could that be?” I asked, remembering the horror in my trunk. “It’d be a pretty good trick to kill yourself, jump into a black garbage bag, and then tie the top from the outside. Even Houdini would have been impressed.”

“True,” said Tim, adjusting the incline on his machine to mimic running uphill. Frankly, I’d go for a downhill button about now. “But the report says the body appears to have been moved several times after death.”

Give the coroner credit for getting that right. Move one: someone had put Nora, dead Nora, in the trunk of my car. Move two: someone else dragged her body from my car into the parking lot of the White Lotus. I still wasn’t sure how Molly had managed that little trick, though it wouldn’t have been too hard for her to get the club attendant to look the other way. Maybe she promised to cast him as an extra on
One Tree Hill.
Being a casting agent in L.A. was better than being the pope at a nursing home. Everybody was willing to kiss the ring now for a heavenly payoff later.

“For Roy, I’ve got deviant conduct on and off the set. Plus drugs and more drugs. I can’t decide if he’s a manic-depressive, a psychopath, or just a badly behaved addict.”

“All nice choices.”

Tim turned up the treadmill speed again, running so fast now he seemed ready to cross a finish line on the other side of the gym. “I’m going to my office after this,” Tim panted. “Come on by and we’ll watch the tapes. I’ll provide the popcorn.”

I didn’t really want to go back to the storage warehouse myself, but I didn’t see a choice. Molly had done enough. Grant had done too much. Ashley and Jimmy were out of the question and Dan wouldn’t want to know. Chauncey Howell was out of my budget. I didn’t need an escort who charged five hundred bucks an hour.

A different Korean sat at the front desk this time, and he simply nodded when I waved my key in his direction. The corridors seemed better lit than before and no bats flew down at me. I wandered uneasily toward my cubicle, realizing that I’d half suspected the first time I was here that I was hiding porn tapes. Maybe I’d never wanted to see them.

I found the shopping bag in the storage space just where I’d left it and I pawed through, tossing Roy’s suit and shoes and shirts back in the cubby. If I forgot to pay by the third of next month, the Korean would be slightly better dressed.

I arrived back at Tim’s office and found him huddled with two other producers, trying to put together the final cut on the night’s show. He took one look at my overflowing bag of tapes and shook his head.

“All from Roy?” he asked.

“Yes, but not all ofthem are…well, you know. Some are just his show segments. Tapes of interviews he’d done. All the things he liked to watch in bed.”

One of the producers in the room, a youngish woman with form-fitting jeans and bright-orange Pumas, giggled.

“My boyfriend watches golf in bed,” she said. “Not a great aphrodisiac.”

“Unless someone scores a hole in one,” offered the guy next to her.

Tim shook his head, then got up and led me down the hall to a cluster of high-tech digital edit suites. He poked his head into one after another, but all of them were full.

“Find me a plain old VCR and I’ll look at them by myself,” I said.

“It’ll take you forever,” Tim said. “You’ve got more hours of film there than in
Doctor Zhivago
. Talk about slogging through.”

He made a call to another part of the building, and when he hung up, he said, “Good news. One of the best editors we have is free for a couple of hours. Corey. He’s quick — and he won’t blab, either.”

Ten minutes later, I paced around the back of Corey’s editing room while he fast-forwarded through the first tape, the start-to-finish recording of an endless interview Roy had done with some third-rate
Survivor
contestant.

“Raw footage,” Corey said, popping the tape out. “But not the kind of raw we’re looking for.”

The second tape was boring but aboveboard, as was the third. The fourth and fifth were segments that had aired on
Night Beat
, and the sixth was Roy’s favorite — himself on
Celebrity Jeopardy!
Corey moved quickly but carefully through the tapes, scanning half a dozen more.