“Yes, honey. Don’t you worry about me,” George assured me.
Finally we were in. It was pitch-black, but I could make out something large looming up ahead. I started to sweat.
“Ahhhh!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it. A mummy grabbed me. We were shuffling through a very narrow hallway. It opened up into a small room where a bikini-clad girl was tied to a table and slowly being tortured by Leatherface. You know,
The Texas Chain-saw Massacre
guy. As we hugged the farthest wall, a hand reached out and grabbed my leg.
“Ahhhhh!” Okay, sorry. It was me screaming again.
“Whatever happened to
man up
, Alex? You’re hurting me!”
“I’m not touching you, George!” He looked behind him.
“Ahhh! Run!” A big, bloody guy with an ax protruding from his head had George by the tail.
We tried to pick up the pace, but we kept bumping into the people ahead of us. It was very discombobulating because we couldn’t see anything. Screams came from the hall in front of us. Then we were in another room.
This one was the famous
Psycho
scene. Janet Leigh in the shower, being knifed. I have to say, they did a great job. The blood, or food-colored corn syrup that passes for blood, looked very real. The girl screamed as she was knifed through the shower curtain. The killer had a maniacal look on his face.
Again we were shoved forward. Pitch-black, screams getting ever louder. Someone grabbed me from behind.
“George, is that you?” I yelled. No answer. I slowly turned and found myself face-to-face with the guy from
Scream
. And so I did.
“Ahhh!” I took off running as fast as I could, but stumbled over a rug.
“Owww!” It wasn’t a rug; it was George.
“What the hell are you doing down there? Get up.”
“Oh, just resting! What do you mean? I was pushed. Alex, seriously. I want out of here. This is crazy!”
We continued pushing forward until the hallway opened up to a dimly lit room. It was Michael Myers, and he had yet another barely dressed woman lying on the floor under him, and his ax came swinging down on her. She was screaming bloody murder. Did I detect a theme here? This was bringing the term
torture porn
to a whole new level. Did any males get chopped up in Hef’s haunted house? I was about to make a political statement about misogynists and the world when George yelled.
“Let’s get out of here. Now!”
He pushed me into the next hallway murder room. I heard a door close and then there was complete silence. It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room. And my lungs. And then I heard a repetitive
squeak . . . squeak . . . squeak.
I looked around the corner, holding my breath. George was squeezing the life out of my arm. And then I saw it. A little tricycle going around and around in circles. It was being ridden by a mechanized doll of some kind. As he rode around to face me, I realized it was the creepy little clown from the
Saw
series. Then he steered toward a chair where yet another half-naked woman sat. A horrible torture device was attached to her bloody head, and a pool of blood grew around her feet.
“George, look.” I whispered. “That puddle is actually getting bigger. How do they make the fake blood do that?” We stepped a little closer.
“Alex. That’s Shana!” George was amused. “Hey, sweetie. So this is where you’ve been? I hope you’re getting paid a lot. All that corn syrup in your hair. You better get that nasty stuff out right away or—”
“Georgie, shut up!” Something wasn’t right. I stepped even closer and looked at her eyes. Maybe she’d passed out from all the alcohol.
“Shana, you okay?” There was no response. I touched her, and then I knew. Quickly backing up, I grabbed George.
“George, call the police. Shana’s dead!”
Chapter 4
Within a half hour, the party was suddenly taken over by the color blue—police uniforms. They had responded when called and immediately requested more help to secure the scene and shut the party down so nobody could leave. As Detective Frank Jakes walked over, followed by his partner, Detective Len Davis, he barked at a couple of men who were ogling the Playboy centerfolds. Couldn’t blame them, really. After all, they were men.
Jakes was taking me in as he approached us. He had that kind of dopey look on his face he got sometimes. Happy to see me, but more than that. My heart skipped a beat. He obviously wanted to hug me or something, but was on the job. We kind of hovered near each other. God knows I could have used a hug. It looked like Georgie could use one, too. He was very pale.
“Okay,” Jakes said to me, “let me have it. How did you manage to find another body?”
I looked pointedly at him.
“Shana is . . . was a friend of mine. Sort of . . .” I wrapped my arms around Georgie, who was shaking.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to seem insensitive. It’s just . . . kind of uncanny.”
Jakes was right. I seemed to attract dead bodies like flies to poop. I jumped right in.
“Shana had a stalker approach her tonight.” That really got his attention.
“What happened? Exactly.” Jakes moved in a little closer.
“We were standing at the bar when this guy came up to her with a gift basket,” I answered. “She freaked and had him thrown out.”
“Did she call him by name? What did he look like? Can you remember anything that stands out about him?”
“I think she referred to him as “asshole,” but that’s about it. He was very strange. I mean, if you were to look up
stalker
in the dictionary, you’d probably see his face. And, oh yeah, he had a squinty eye.”
Jakes looked up from his notes with an odd expression on his face.
“What? He did!” I said. “And crazy hair, too. He had a weird way of speaking—he kept drawing out his wordsssssss. Like thisssssss.”
“Well, okay. So he sounded odd and he looked odd. Did he seem threatening?”
“No. I mean, Shana didn’t seem scared, just very annoyed. As he was being dragged away he kept yelling a Bible quote. Something from Genesis, I think.” Then something came to me. “She definitely knew him. I mean, she said he was a longtime stalker of hers.”
“She was royally pissed off at the security guys when they came over and took him away. I mean, really belittled them. It was humiliating.” George said.
“Why’s that?” Jakes looked at George.
“Apparently, there had been strict orders to keep him off the premises,” George said. “He got in anyway. She was over-the-top rude, if you ask me.”
Jakes took this in, then asked, “Where’s the gift basket now?”
“Uh, she dumped it in a trash can by the bar when the guy was dragged away. I’ll show you.” George started toward the bar.
Jakes told two of his men to follow George and collect the basket.
“And be careful with it. We need to process it for prints.” Jakes saw that Len Davis had now joined the boys in blue in ogling the Playmates. Jakes back-handed him on the chest.
“Pay attention, Len.”
“I am payin’ attention,” he said. Jakes rolled his eyes.
“Okay, Alex, tell me what happened in the haunted house before we take a look at the body.”
“It’s pretty straightforward, really,” I said. “It’s set up with scenes from famous slasher movies. We found Shana in the
Saw
room, dead.”
“What’s
Saw
?” Jakes asked. “Is that like a chain saw?” Clearly he didn’t get out much.
“
Saw
is a hugely successful horror-movie franchise. Ever hear of torture porn?”
He looked at me blankly.
“Okay, well, it’s an over-the-top gory movie.”
“And Shana is your friend how?”
“She’s the ex-wife of Barry Stern, an actor on my show. She and I have seen each other over the years at different events and things. We weren’t really friends, per se. But we were friend
ly
.”
“’Eighty-six, right?” Davis asked.
“What?” Jakes said.
Davis was looking at me. “She was a Playmate in ’eighty-six, right?”
“How do you know that?”
“Don’t ask,” Jakes said. “You’ll only lose respect—
more
respect—for him. Okay, take us to it.”
“To what?”
“The body. Do you think you can handle it?” he said.
“You want me to go back in there with you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jakes said, then looked at George, who had just returned from the bar. “Both of you. I mean, it could help us find the killer or killers.” Then to George, “Did you find the basket?”
“Yeah, right on top where she tossed it. Do I really have to go back in there?” George looked like he was going to cry.
“They need us, George. Shana needs us. You can do it.” I put my arm around him.
“Oh. I don’t know.” Georgie said, looking from me to Jakes and back again. “I guess I could try. What if I have to hurl?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. C’mon.” And off George and I went for a second go-round at the haunted house, with Jakes and Davis closely behind.
All the lights were on in the haunted house, making it easy to retrace our steps. Along the way we passed more uniformed cops. The mansion was in complete lockdown, with cops at every conceivable exit. I wondered how Hef was taking it.
“. . . and then we came to . . . here,” I said as we turned the corner. I was having a difficult time looking at the display. George groaned. There were two uniformed cops standing watch over Shana’s body, so Jakes didn’t really need us to take him to it.
“Is this exactly the way it was?” Jakes asked.
I peeked through my hands. Shana was still there, still dead, but something was different.
“The tricycle,” I said.
“What about it?”
“It was going around and around, squeaking.”
Jakes looked at the two uniforms who were standing guard over the scene.
“Who turned that bike off?”
The men exchanged a glance, and then one of them said, “The squeaking was driving us nuts.”
Jakes stood toe to toe with the man and read his name tag.
“Officer Reardon, in the future, you don’t touch a thing at the scene of a homicide—especially if it’s my case.” He jabbed the younger man in the chest with a rigid forefinger. “You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the officer said tightly.
“How about you, Officer Webb? You got that?”
“I got it, sir.”
“Now, did you geniuses turn anything else on or off?” Davis asked. “Touch anything else?”
“No, sir,” Webb said. “We did not.”
“Okay,” Davis said.
As he and Jakes put on some latex surgical gloves, Jakes looked at George and me and said, “You two stand right there and don’t move. We can’t have this scene contaminated any further.”
I felt bad for Shana. She was barely wearing any clothing. She seemed so vulnerable. Exposed. I knew she was dead. But still.
“Could we cover her with a blanket or something?” I asked.
“In a minute.” Jakes said as the two of them approached Shana’s body, then leaned over to get a closer look. I noticed the blood on the floor was still very wet, and drops still fell from Shana’s body.
“Maybe somebody just had enough of her.” I stepped over next to him.
“What do you mean?” Jakes looked at me.
“Shana had a reputation. I heard things about her. And I saw her in action tonight. She wasn’t very nice to people. The security guards can tell you. She gave divas a bad name.”
Jakes took it in and then looked down.
“She’s bled out,” he said.
“How long does it take a body to do that?” I asked.
“Depending on the artery that’s severed,” Jakes said, “could be minutes; could even be seconds. What’s dripping now isn’t coming from her. It’s dripping from beneath her.”
“She was still bleeding when we found her,” I said.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes. I even commented on how realistic the whole thing looked,” I said as I glanced over at George. He seemed dangerously close to tossing his cookies.
“I gotta get outta here, guys. It’s really hot.” George scratched at his collar.
“Well,” Jakes said, “the ME should be arriving any minute, and we’ll have too many people in here when he does.” He looked at the two officers. “Webb, please walk Alex and George outside, will you? Stay there until the ME gets here with his men, then bring them all in.”
“Yessir.” He walked up to us. “Let’s go, folks.”
“Thanks, you two. I know this wasn’t an easy thing to do.” Jakes stood closer to me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I-I’m okay.” Actually, I thought I was going to faint. I took a few deep breaths and the feeling passed. “I still need to talk to you, but I have to get Georgie out of here.” I said. “I’m feeling a little light-headed myself. Do you ever get used to it? The dead-body thing?” I asked him.
“Yes. And no. Get some fresh air.” He squeezed my hand.
“There’s something else I need to tell you . . . about Shana. I don’t know what it means, but I think it may be . . . something.” I reached out for him to steady myself. “Sorry—I’m such a lightweight. I feel . . . a little woozy.”
“It’s okay. You are a civilian, you know. It’s a lot to take in. Go get some air, and I’ll come find you when I’m through in here. We can talk then.”
“Okay.”
I turned to George to tell him we were leaving, but he was already falling, fainting dead away.
Chapter 5
Officer Webb caught George before he hit the ground. He and another officer escorted us outside, where we were besieged with questions. The two most popular were “What happened?” and “When can we leave?” George was in no condition to answer either one, and I started throwing out “No comment” here and there.
“You’ll have to ask the detective in charge,” I told them.
“So, what do we do now?” George asked, taking deep breaths. We found two chairs. The officers lowered him into one and went back inside. I struggled with my petticoats.