You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) (20 page)

She stopped wiggling her nose, and started talking.

#

Kristin had a job at a swanky health club called Medallion Health Club and Spa, teaching a class entitled “Strippercise.” Better physique through the old bump-and-grind. Looking at the women milling about in the chi-chi juice bar, with its expensive lack of décor, I wondered why any of them thought they needed to work out ever again, as they’d already achieved physical perfection and probably were worshipped daily by multitudes. Then I chided myself for being unfair. For many of these women, maintaining the perfect body was not simple vanity: it was their job, whether they were actresses or trophy wives or keeping up with the Joneses. Where the Joneses were trophy wives.

Kristin bounced into the gym in a blue leotard and baggy sweatpants, an Adidas bag slung over her shoulder, her blonde hair up in a ponytail. She looked as stunning as ever. She said hi to everyone she saw, which reminded me so much of how she arrived at the casino stage every night. One guy in workout gear with a glowing sheen of sweat on him stopped her mid-aisle. She high-fived him and squealed, “That’s absolutely brilliant, darling!” Then she continued on her bouncy way, heading toward the studio where her class was held.

I stepped into her path. When she looked up, she smiled at me automatically. And then her eyes narrowed, as though she were trying to place me, and widened again when she recognized me. Her mouth dropped open.

“Dru? Dru!” She dropped her bag and gave me a big girly hug, which is to say she pulled me close but not close enough for our breasts to meet, which would be much too icky. When she stepped back, she brushed her bangs out of her eyes and said, “What are you doing here in LA?”

“I need to talk to you. Jenny told me where you’d be.”

“Are you taking my class today? I bet you’d be super. And we don’t have any fancy dance moves.”

I had to laugh at that. My unwillingness to do anything approximating a dance step in the show had been the cause of not a few arguments backstage. I might be lithe and fast and strong, but coordinated on the dance floor I am not. “This is what you’re doing?”

She waved her hand in the air.
Comme çi comme ça
. “I teach a couple of times a week. Guess what my nighttime job is.”

“You’re a dancer?”

She giggled and nodded. “At the Canyon Coyote. You’ll never believe who stuck twenty dollars in my waistband last night. Dean Oliphant. Oh, you don’t watch the telly. Trust me, it was brilliant to get him. The Canyon Coyote is a top-notch place to work.” She waved to a woman who came in, wearing pink spandex workout gear. “So, have you moved to LA? Do you need anything? Everything all right?”

I shook my head. “Do you have anywhere we can talk?”

“I have to get the studio ready. Come on.”

She took me into Studio C, a room with polished wooden floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors with a barre running across them. There was a wooden pole in the center of the room, as glossy as the floors, with a stool next to it. Kristin dumped her bag on the ground and pulled out a pair of four-inch heels, an iPod, and several scarves. While she attached the iPod to the stereo, I closed the door. It didn’t have a lock, which was annoying: I wanted us to have an uninterrupted conversation.

A few men started to mill around the windows into the studio, needing to take their water break and towel off the sweat right where they could see in. Kristin rolled her eyes and went over to the blinds, which she dropped in front of the windows. “They’re always the same. Always hoping for a little look-see. So. What’s up?”

“Have you heard about Colin?”

“That bastard. What’s he up to these days?”

Best to get on with it. “He’s dead.”

She stared at me for a moment, like I’d switched to Chinese or something. After a second, she barked one forced laugh, without smiling. “You’re joking. Please.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry.”

She tottered over to the stool by the wooden pool and sat on it, her face blank. “How? When? What happened?”

“He was murdered.”

“Murdered?” Her eyes got large and she put her hand in front of her mouth. She took a couple of deep breaths, gulping air. Then she leaned toward me, despite the fact that we were alone, and she whispered, “Was it Vin Behar?”

That was an interesting leap for logic for her to make. “What?”

“Was it Behar?”

“What makes you mention him?”

“Behar’s paid a couple of visits to me here, in Los Angeles. He shows up out of the blue and says if I know anything about where Colin is, I’d better tell him. Because Colin is in big trouble.”

“Why?”

She shrugged and shook her head. “If I knew anything about where Colin was, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell that son of a bitch.” She bit her lower lip, lipstick smearing her teeth, and her eyes widened as she fought not to cry, but it was a losing battle. She fell to the ground and the tears started coming. There was a tissue box by the stereo and I grabbed it for her. She took a handful of tissues and held them up to her face as she rocked back and forth. I watched her for a moment, envious that she was able to cry for Colin and I wasn’t, not yet at least. Kristin and Colin had had a thing back when she first joined his show, three years ago, but they’d remained friends even after he’d moved on to others. Colin had been her main support system in the States, up until his disappearance two months ago.

I sat on the stool next to hers and put my arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head against me and we sat there for a moment; the only sound echoing through the room was her crying.

So Behar had been looking for Colin in Los Angeles. Interesting. How did he know Colin had come to Los Angeles? And if he knew that Colin was here, why didn’t he know where Colin was?

The door opened and a couple of women, dressed for class, came rushing in, chatting away. When the one in front of the pack saw us sitting there on the floor, with Kristin sobbing and me doing my best to comfort her, she stopped dead and mimed her confusion as to what they should do. Good lord, the things you have to come right out and tell people. I waved my arm toward the door, indicating they should get the hell out.

They got.

After a minute or two, Kristin sat up and wiped her face. Her mascara was waterproof, at least. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “I can’t believe he’s dead. Do the police know who killed him?”

I shook my head. “Did Behar say why Colin was in big trouble?”

She paused, for much too long, before she shook her head.

“Kristin. This is important. I need to know. Why was Behar looking for Colin?”

Her bouncy demeanor vanished. She was scared, and it wasn’t too hard to guess that she was scared of me at that moment. Of my reaction to what she’d say.

Tough.

“Maybe you knew about this,” she began.

Her voice trailed off, and I rolled my hand in the air.
Keep going
. When she didn’t continue, I slammed my fist into one of the exercise mats. “Kristin. Please. Behar has basically been sitting on my ass for the past six weeks because of whatever this was. It has to be bad. Bad enough to make Colin jump ship on us in the middle of the damned show. What might he have done?”

“Colin would have told you if this were true, right?”

I don’t like to judge people on their relative intelligence but Kristin could try the patience of the Dalai Lama. “Tell me what Behar told you.”

“He said right before he disappeared, Colin suddenly had scads of money, and he must have stolen it from the casino.”

Interesting. Because if that briefcase in Colin’s apartment were any indication, that was true. No idea when that had shown up. Somehow Behar knew about it. And wanted some. I shook my head. “Oh, come on.”

“That’s what he said. Told him he was bonkers and fuck off. No way would Colin have done that.”

She shook her head repeatedly, as if trying to get the ideas out of her head. Colin had been a big part of her life for a long time. Kristin never talked about her family or home life, other than her sister, Jenny, but the fact that she had never talked about them said almost as much as if she had. Colin had been family. And he was gone.

“I have another strange question about Colin. About some people he knew.”

She turned around to look at herself in the wall mirror. “Go ahead. I can’t promise I’ll have the answer. You knew way more about him than I ever did.”

And yet she had just told me something I hadn’t known. I wanted to slap myself. “This is about last year. Before Colin disappeared.”

She rummaged around in her Adidas bag and pulled out a sack full of makeup. I’ve never understood women who put on full makeup before exercising—makeup is wonderful, exercise is fantastic, but the two don’t go very well together. But perhaps makeup was part of the full package of a class built around stripping. And more than likely Kristin wasn’t in any position to cancel class on the fly.

“Colin knew a television actress by the name of Penelope Gurevich—”

She turned from the mirror, mascara wand forgotten. “The siren?”

“Sorry?”

“From
The Night Glen
? The sex siren.”

I needed to remind myself to never, ever watch that show. “Yes, her.”

“He knew her? God, she’s beautiful.” She shook her head. “No. If he’d known her, he would have used that for promotion for the show.”

“Trust me, I’m absolutely certain about this.”

She shook her head. Then she stamped her foot and let out a yell of frustration. “No, I don’t know anything about that. Listen, I’ve got to get started here.” She shook her lithe arms out. “Can’t believe I have to teach right now.”

“It’ll help take your mind off of it.”

Kristin nodded. Then she gave me a quick hug and touched her forehead to mine. It was oddly endearing, given that we’d never been friends. As co-workers, we’d gotten along splendidly, but we had been at very, very different places in our lives when we worked together in Vegas. “Ring me about any funeral arrangements?”

“I will.” I hadn’t given a thought about what to do about burying Colin. What a To Do list I had stretching out in front of me. First, don’t get arrested. Second, get my husband buried.

#

When I got home, Stevie told me what she’d found out while I was gone: Ian Jack Reynolds, president of Lang Studios and a major player in the world of movie and TV production, was married to former actress Amanda da Silva, who happened to have a brother named Benedict, who happened to have a daughter named Anne. Who, as it turned out, had gone to high school with Penelope Gurevich. Who appeared in a number of photographs servicing the aforementioned Mr. Reynolds.

Which would have made for a nice big twist of fate, except for the fact that, as I may have mentioned, I don’t believe that such things exist.

I told her what Kristin had told me: Behar had been after Colin for a while, arguing with Colin about money back in Las Vegas, continuing to harass her in Los Angeles while looking for him. And he’d been there the night Colin was murdered.

“Colin definitely had some money,” Stevie said.

“He did. He got it from Penelope. Behar was all over it back in Las Vegas, according to Kristin. Why?”

“You’re saying…what’s the connection between Penelope, Colin, and Mr. Behar?” Stevie asked.

“Exactly. Except don’t say ‘Mr. Behar,’ say ‘Scumbag Behar.’”

She nodded, as if making a mental note of the proper honorific to use should she ever greet him in the future.

“We know how Colin and Vin knew each other. But that’s it.” I looked at my sister. “I should leave finding a connection between all them to the police, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes. Yes, you should.”

We both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“I’ll keep at it,” Stevie said.

“Go to bed, sweetie,” I told her. “You’ll do a better job in the morning with a proper amount of sleep.”

She stared at me a moment, one of those “I know better than thou” stares my sister is so good at giving, and then she ruined the moment when her entire body shook with a tremendous yawn.

“Okay,” she said. “A few hours’ sleep.”

She stood up and stared at me for a moment. Then she kissed the top of my head, as I’ve done so many times for her, before slowly mounting the stairs up to the bedrooms.

I had too much residual adrenaline after the scene with Kristin, so rather than keep Stevie awake by pointlessly fidgeting upstairs, I sat on the sofa and closed my eyes. I expected that the image of Colin’s dead body or worry about my own future, both legal and otherwise, was what would be flashing behind my eyelids.

Instead, I saw those goddamn photos we’d developed this afternoon.

And I imagined what Stevie must have gone through developing them.

I should have spent the afternoon comforting her, telling her everything was going to be okay, making plans to get her someone to talk to.

Most of the time, she seemed okay. I had spun out dealing with her problems for eleven years. Another day or so wasn’t going to matter.

I closed my eyes again, and I saw the back of Peter Quaid’s head. Or rather, what was left of it after I took a cricket bat to it. With the sound of Stevie’s screams in the background.

I wasn’t getting to sleep any time soon.

At a moment like that, two options were available: one, use the advanced meditation techniques Stevie had taught me to get control of my wandering mind, which almost always led to rest, if not outright sleep, or two, drink myself stupid.

I couldn’t count backward from one thousand by ones, let alone thirteens, so I started checking every cupboard we had for alcohol.

We were out. Maybe Gary would have some. I could ask forgiveness later. This was an emergency.

The garden between the houses had low-level lamps dotted here and there, lighting trees from below and giving just enough illumination to prevent me from walking into a bed of azaleas or making full-body contact with a palm tree. The light pollution from Los Angeles gave me a good enough view of the ocean and the beach—really needed to make it to the beach before I was hauled off to the lockup. The dim blue underwater lights of the pool actually made the entire pool area glow like a radioactive site.