I wanted to weep. Was I truly that old? Never mind. I still needed information.
If Jakes had been there with me, he’d have known what questions to ask. I didn’t like admitting it, but I had a weak bedside manner when it came to interrogation. Maybe I could take a class at The Learning Annex. “How to Interrogate Witnesses,” taught by Lieutenant Columbo, or maybe Lieutenant Kojak . . . Was I dating myself? Maybe I
was
old. . . . I was flailing.
Then she perked up. “I know he had family, though. I mean, a mother and father, at least.”
“Oh? How do you know that?”
“They called me, after he died,” she said. “Wanted to know if he had anything of value in his place. When I told them it was just clothes and stuff, they told me to give it to Goodwill or something. That father—what a cold fish he sounded like. I still got the address written down somewhere.”
“Why do you have the address if you didn’t ship them his things?”
“ ’Cause I told that father of his that Aaron owed me two months’ rent. He bitched, but he sent me a check. You want I should try to find it?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, “yes, I would. Thanks so much.”
“Let me look in my closet. I just about throw everything in there. I won’t be a second. Have a seat. Get comfortable. By the way, did I tell you I read tarot cards? Maybe we could read yours? Whaddya think?” She turned and walked down the hall.
Chapter 19
I heard her rustling around in a closet down the hall and then a loud yelp. “Son of a bitch! That hurt!” She turned the corner, re-poofing her flattened hairdo, and started to hand me a piece of paper. “Damn, I need one of them organizers in here. That closet is a mess, but I found it!” I reached for the paper but she pulled her hand away.
“Oh, c’mon, now! You can’t go! We’re just gettin’ acquainted! I want to hear all about you and especially that hunky Alec Brandon!” Alec is an actor on my show who has an impressive female following. Apparently, she was one of them.
“I’ve had a crush on him for thirty years! I’d love to read his cards! Now, why don’t I get you some coffee—or somethin’ stronger, right? And you relax and we’ll do a little reading.” She grabbed her deck of cards and started to shuffle them.
Oh, God, it was going to be a long night if I didn’t get out of there fast. I made an excuse about having to learn my lines, grabbed the piece of paper and headed for the door. “Thanks again for your help.”
As I drove away I could hear her yelling, “If you ever want your cards read, you come on over. Don’t even call first!” I nodded enthusiastically and waved. And hauled out of there.
I jumped onto the Santa Monica Freeway heading toward Venice and promptly got stuck in five o’clock traffic. I pushed the phone symbol and yelled out, “Mom’s cell.” Nothing happened. I had been having problems with my Bluetooth voice recognition. Sometimes it took a few times.
“Dammit!” I began screaming, “
Mom’s cell!
”
Finally I heard ringing and then “Hewwo?” Sarah still had a little bit of baby in her voice.
“Hi, my beautiful girl. It’s your mommy!”
“Hi, Mommy. I’m bored.” The dreaded word every parent hates to hear. “And I miss you, Mom!”
“I miss you, too, Stinky. You’re not having fun anymore?”
“I am, but it’s hot here and the bugs are really really big! I miss my toys an’ stuff and the food’s kind of icky.”
That’s not a good way to impress the relatives I never see: have my city kid bashing the “country” life.
“Okay, sweetie, not so loud! Let me talk to Gramma. You’ll be home soon. I love you and I miss you so much.”
“Love you, too! GRAMMA. MOMMY WANTS YOU!” I think my ear started to bleed.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mom. What’s goin’ on there? Sarah’s not having a good time anymore?”
“She’s fine. I think she just misses you.”
“Well, I miss her, too. Maybe just a little while longer, huh? I really miss you guys.”
“They’re planning a big barbecue in a couple of days. It would be a shame to miss that. Why don’t you just check back in tomorrow?”
“Okay. Ahh!” I swerved as someone cut me off. “I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow!”
By the time I got home, I was famished. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the fridge, so I pulled out a frozen mac and cheese dinner and nuked it. At least it was organic! And low in preservatives, high in cheesy fat. I poured a nice pinot grigio into a fancy wineglass and took a big sip. That made me feel more civilized.
I took out the piece of paper with Aaron Summers’s parents’ address on it and set it on the table. They lived in Hancock Park, California. That was only about five minutes from Aaron’s place. Why had they asked to have his things shipped? The real question was, What reason could I have to drive over there and talk to them? Or what reason could I invent? The landlady hadn’t said anything about giving the address to the police, so probably what I should do is call Jakes and pass it on to him.
Thinking about Jakes, I remembered what his partner had said to me in the parking lot. Were Frank Jakes’s feelings for me so strong that he was putting his job on the line? And if he did feel strongly about me, how did I feel about him? Paul was going to be gone until the end of the month. That gave me almost two weeks to figure it out.
I grabbed the phone and dialed Jakes’s cell number before I realized that I had memorized it.
“Hello?”
For some reason I almost froze, almost hung up, but finally said, “Uh, hello, Jakes. It’s—”
“Alex,” he said, “hi.”
“Hi.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Did I catch you at work?”
“No, you actually caught me in my car leaving work,” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m . . . home.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is there?”
He hesitated and then asked, “What is it, Alex? What’s on your mind?”
“Your partner came to see me today, at work,” I said. “I mean . . . well, in the parking lot at work.” I was aware that I was stammering, and I didn’t know why.
“Uh-huh.”
“He had, uh, something he wanted to tell me . . . about you.”
“Okay, let me stop you right there, Alex,” he said. “I’d rather not do this over the phone.”
“Oh, uh, okay . . .”
“Can we meet somewhere . . . or can I come there?” he asked.
“Um, here?”
“Yes,” he said. “I thought you said your daughter was with your mother? On a trip?”
“That’s right.”
“And Paul . . . he’s out of town?”
Somehow I could sense where he was going with this. I hesitated. “Yes.”
“So . . . can we meet and talk?”
No, I thought. “Yes,” I said.
“Be there in a few.”
Chapter 20
He rang the bell and I let him in.
“Want some coffee?” I asked.
“Coffee? Are we planning on being up all night?” I looked at him and he held my eyes. “How about something a little stronger?” He picked up a purple My Little Pony. “Nice hair.”
“That’s my daughter’s. I have an opened bottle of white wine.”
“Yeah, I figured it was Sarah’s. Nothing stronger?”
I smiled at him questioningly. This was kind of feeling like a dare. Or maybe it was just my competitive nature.
“Sorry, I’m all out of rotgut. Have a seat.” I pulled out another wineglass and got mine from the sink.
He sat at the table and looked out the back door at the canals.
“This brings back some fond memories.” He was referring to last year when I had been saved from a much too near death experience by him and Paul. “Suppose you tell me what’s on your mind, Alex?”
“Let’s talk about you first.”
He took a sip—no, make that a gulp—of wine.
“What about me?” he asked. “What did my partner tell you?”
“He said you were getting yourself into trouble.”
“That’s nothing new,” he said. “Did he say why this time?”
“Yes, he said it was . . . because of me.”
“You?”
“Yes,” I said, “me.”
We stared at each other across the table. He picked up a strawberry from a bowl on the table and popped it in his mouth. “Did he say what he meant?”
“I think you know what he meant, Jakes.” I bit into a strawberry and slowly chewed it. He was staring at my mouth. And I was staring at him staring at my mouth. Jeez! What was this turning into—
9½ Weeks
?
“Look,” Jakes said, “I don’t know how deep you want to get into this right now, Alex.”
I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or what exactly. “To tell you the truth”—and I was—“neither am I. Why don’t we stick to talking about how much trouble you’re in because of me?”
“None,” he said. “Any trouble I’m in is always my own doing. You just let me worry about it.” He went for another strawberry and slowly bit into it. Juice was running down his chin. He brushed it away with the back of his hand, looking at me the whole time. Was he doing this on purpose?
“Would you please just stop it?”
“Stop what?”
“You know what. The whole biting into the strawberry thing . . . The juice.”
He popped another one into his mouth. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. These are good. Where did you get them? Whole Foods?” He was lying, but I couldn’t prove it so I went back to the topic at hand.
“You’ve been giving me special treatment, haven’t you? Not considering me a suspect? Letting me help?”
“You know things about these people I don’t,” he explained. “And I’m not treating you as a suspect because I don’t consider you one.”
“Even though everyone else who was there that day at the Emmys
is
a suspect.”
“Were,” Jakes said. “They were suspects in the beginning. I didn’t know them. I know you.”
Then I had to go and open my big fat mouth. “Well, I found out something today, as a matter of fact.”
“What’s that?”
I couldn’t help myself. I was excited about the info. I told him about visiting Aaron Summers’s landlady and getting his parents’ address from her.
“What the hell are you doing? It really bugs me that you do that kind of thing on your own. You’re an actress, remember? I’m the detective.” He gave me a stern look and then asked, “Why did you start with Summers?”
“He auditioned for a role on my old soap. I was able to get his home address and check it out.”
“Well, four are actors,” he answered. “I checked with the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA, like you suggested.”
“Four?” I asked. “What about the fifth man?”
“Still checking.”
I sat back in my chair. “Jakes, if they’re all actors, what does this mean?”
“Somebody’s obviously targeting actors, but it’s a little more than that.”
We weren’t including Henri in our conversation. He had not been an actor. He was the square peg in the round hole.
“How do you mean?”
“They’re all the same type,” he said. “Young, handsome studs, from what I’ve been able to find out. Not look-alikes, but the same general type.”
“So it’s not bad enough that somebody may be targeting soap actors, but they’re picking a certain type.”
“Right.”
“So, does this mean you have a serial killer?”
Jakes winced and said, “My boss doesn’t want to hear that term, but if I find that the fifth man was an actor, then, yes, that’s what my report is going to have to say. Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, if you hadn’t recognized Aaron Summers’s picture, we might not have known they were actors. I mean, it’s not like they were making their living at it. They all had other jobs, except for Jackson Masters.”
“But they have worked as actors.”
“To some extent,” he said. “A couple of them had done commercials, local plays, that kind of thing. Jackson was the only one who was actually working on a show at the time of his death. And I still have to find out about the fifth man.”
“When will you know?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Len’s supposed to be working that angle, but I guess he took some time off to talk to you.”
“He cares about you.”
“Sure,” Jakes said. “Me and his job. If I get in trouble, he doesn’t want any of it getting on him.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought partners were very close—”
“We haven’t been able to do that,” he said. “Len replaced my old partner, whom I was with for twelve years. Even though Len and I have been together for five, there’s just this . . . space between us.”
“What happened to him? Your old partner?”
“He . . . died.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. Was he killed in the line of duty?”
“Yeah,” Jakes said.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I was waiting for him to elaborate, but it was obviously a sore subject. “I won’t pry. . . . I mean it’s not like we’re really close. . . .”
He just nodded. “You got that address for me?”
“I’d like to go with you to see the parents.”
“Why?”
“Because I was there when Jackson was killed,” I said.
He sat back in his chair. “I can’t take you.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too recognizable, Alex,” he said, “especially to a family whose son was part of your world, even on a part-time basis.”
“I don’t understand the problem.”
“You’d be a distraction,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me the woman you talked to today kept gushing?”
“Yes, but she still came up with the address, didn’t she?”
He smiled and said, “An address you haven’t given me yet.”
After I handed it to him, I walked him to the front door. We walked close together, occasionally brushing against each other. I didn’t know if he was doing it, or I was, or if it was a combination of both.
We stood in the doorway.
“So,” he said, “what’s going on? I’m not leaving until you tell me.”