Red Flags (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

On my way north on the 405 freeway, I also called Tara to see if Jenny was able to have visitors. She wasn't, but Tara offered to buy me dinner, and I met her near the hospital at an upscale pizza café.

After we ordered, she had more information for me. “I checked online calendars for Coleman, Edward, and Billy,” she said, and I could see they'd all marked themselves out Thursday mornings. I couldn't tell for what. There was only an acronym.”

“Let me guess, BDBC?” Her eyes got big, and I related what I'd learned about the group from Nikki.

“That explains some of the other folders I saw in the network labeled ‘big dogs.' In fact, there was a membership roster I can get you.”

“How did you see that information? Did you have to break in somewhere?”

“Would you believe there are totally unsecured files on our internal network? I remoted-in from home last night and found folders for Coleman, Edward, and Billy in a public drive.” She curled her lip. “Their calendars have no security on them, either. I can see everything about all of their meetings, including confidential personnel data. I need to tell human resources about that.”

I smiled. “Maybe wait a week or two?”

“You bet.” She laughed. “Anyway, you want those names? I remember a couple of them, but not all of them.”

“You opened the file?”

“I looked at a bunch of files. I was curious if our awful trio would be on the list. They were.” She closed her eyes. “I only recall the two names that were crossed out, because I remember the news stories. Bubba Doyle and Richard Arena, local bigwigs busted for insider trading, unfair business practices. Also money laundering.”

My eyebrows went up.

Tara misunderstood. “Bubba Doyle is quite a name, isn't it? Or nickname.”

“I met Richard Arena.”

I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, Edward had driven for Richard Arena's team at the 24 Hours of Daytona. They got connected somewhere. But I hadn't expected their association extended beyond the racing world into the business world.

The waiter delivered our meals, sparing me the need to explain how I knew about Arena's empire of evil deeds. I took a bite of my bacon, pancetta, soft egg, mozzarella, provolone, and black pepper pizza. “If Arena was part of that group, we know they weren't Boy Scouts.”

Tara cut into her own mushroom-and-cheese pizza. “That's what I thought. I'll get you the list.”

I squirmed. “How about telling me the names on it? Sending or printing the file seems worse than sharing some of the information.”

“Whatever you want. Personally, I don't care. I've got to get out of there anyway. I hate them for what they've done to Jenny, and even before that, I was sick of the boys' club.”

“Not many women around?” I sipped my water.

“There are plenty in the lower ranks. Only a couple in the upper levels. One woman on the board. It's disappointing.”

“Sounds like racing.”

“Doesn't it get exhausting? Fighting perception and attitudes all the time?”

I shrugged. “Racing is all I've ever wanted to do. I know I can make my dreams happen if I keep moving forward, keep pushing.”

“That's the problem. I don't care about banking enough to fight that hard. It might be easier if I had female friends in the company to talk to.”

“Aren't there mentoring opportunities or women's networking groups? We're even talking about starting one for women in racing. Surprisingly enough, that was Elizabeth's idea. She's Holden's girlfriend.”

“I wouldn't figure her for girl power.”

“You know her?”

Tara finished a bite of pizza. “Seen her around the office a few times. Saw her more in her element, I guess, at the Media Day.”

“When you were following Billy.”

She looked embarrassed.

“Did Elizabeth talk to Billy much that day? Who else did he talk to?”

Tara didn't know all the names, but she clearly identified Nikki, Maddie Theabo, Maddie's assistant Penny, and Don Kessberg and Erica Aarons from the Grand Prix Association. Then she surprised me. “Coleman was even there.”

“What was he doing?”

“I have no idea. I was sitting in one of the empty grandstands, and I saw Coleman get out of a Town Car, cross the footbridge over the track, and find Billy. Coleman literally dragged Billy out of a conversation. They headed out of the main area, toward the convention center.”

“Toward the parking structure. What time was this?”

“About two.”

“Did you see Coleman leave?”

Tara shook her head and played with the pendant she wore. “I was so concerned with Coleman not seeing me I left the track, got some food, and walked around on the city streets to the plaza. I never saw when Coleman left. I never saw Billy after that either.”

“You watched him for weeks, but got scared off in the last hour of his life and missed his killer.”

She gave me a weak smile. “Oops.”

“I can't blame you, after you saw Coleman show up, but it's too bad.”

“That's why I'm trying to help now. I'll see what else I can dig up on the network at the office.”

“Be careful.” I wanted to tell her not to risk herself, but I wanted her insider information more. Maybe I could help her in return. “You know I've been coaching Madelyn Theabo for the celebrity race?”

“I saw you with her the other day. She seems so nice.”

“She's as great as you think. I was with her today, and I told her what happened with your sister—what I saw, not the background. Maddie's been through the same thing. Or worse. She's involved with a national suicide prevention organization, and she wants to meet you. To talk to you.”

Tara's eyes were big. “I'm not going to turn down the chance to meet Madelyn Theabo. But I'm not sure what she'd want to talk to me about.”

“That's between you two. I'll give her your cell number. Maybe you can talk at the race next weekend.”

Tara looked confused, and I barreled on. “Have you heard of grid girls? Women, always wearing tight clothing, holding flags next to a car on the pre-race grid?”

“I've seen them. Haven't really cared, since they're there for the men.”

“Right? It's annoying. But we're going to turn the concept on its head next weekend.”

“Grid boys?”

I laughed. “Better. My sponsor, Beauté, is partners with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and Beauté is running a contest to find three grid girls for my car for this race. We're looking for breast cancer warriors, so the contest asks entrants to tell us why they should be picked, whether they've fought the disease or they've supported others in the fight.”

“That's wonderful.” Her eyes filled with tears.

I tried to keep my own eyes from watering, as they did almost every time I thought about the idea. “If it goes well here, we'll do it for the rest of the races on the schedule this year.”

“I'd love to see that.”

I smiled. “They're letting me add a fourth person. You, if you'll come.”

She agreed enthusiastically. Back at my hotel room, I sent her the information, sent Penny Tara's contact information for Maddie, and changed into my party clothes. It was time to trade movie stars for rock stars.

Chapter Thirty-three

I took a cab two miles to the famed Troubadour club in West Hollywood, where the drums and bass of the current band got inside you even out on the sidewalk. After giving my name to the man at the microscopic box office window, I got a neon yellow wristband with the club name on it, and I entered the front hallway. I bypassed the bar in its own room on the left, and I started to open the interior door to the main room before I backtracked.

Halfway down the bar was Chris Syfert, a successful music agent and accomplished amateur racecar driver. I'd met her and her more famous cousin, rock star Tommy Fantastic, when they drove an ill-fated third Corvette with Sandham Swift at the 24 Hours of Daytona. That first race had been a disaster, but I was pleased they'd joined us again at the recent Daytona 24 to give it another go. Their persistence got them second in their class. As Chris and I bonded in the wee hours of the night, waiting for our stints, she'd insisted I see them when I was in Los Angeles. Lucky for me, Tommy had a gig and Chris got me on the guest list. I tapped her shoulder, interrupting her conversation with a young, bearded hipster.

Chris turned to greet me with a hug. She had to bend down to do it, since she stood five inches taller than me, even without her three-inch heels. “So good to see you!”

She'd been talking to the drummer of the band Tommy would be playing with. After he excused himself, I climbed up on his stool and asked the bartender for a bottle of Corona.

“It's not Thomas' full band tonight?” I asked Chris. Tommy went by Thomas Kendall at the track, where I'd gotten to know him. I never knew which name to use.

“No. The guys are friends of Tommy's, protégés really, and clients of mine. They cooked up the plan to get Tommy to guest with them on lead guitar for a show here. Tommy can't go more than two weeks without being on stage.”

“I'm glad it worked out so I could see him play.” Tommy was the lead guitarist for a multi-platinum rock band with crazy longevity for the music industry. They'd hit number one with their first album twenty years ago and never looked back. This small club would be a big change from the stadiums Tommy usually played. I said as much to Chris.

“He loves small shows. Really misses that close-up connection to the audience. He does this kind of thing whenever he can.” She laughed. “You should see when the whole band plays here, the Roxy, or the Satellite. They do it under a fake band name, but people still figure it out and pack the joint.”

The band playing inside the club stopped with a flourish. After a brief silence, we heard recorded music start up at a lower volume. Chris slipped off her stool. “Let's go find Tommy in the green room.”

At the far end of the main room, past a security guard, we climbed stairs next to the stage to reach a long, narrow room filled with a brown couch, tons of music gear, and a half-dozen people. Windows on the left wall overlooked the stage. A door at the end led to a bathroom. Tommy sat on an arm of the couch, but jumped up when Chris and I appeared.

“Kate!” He picked his way over four pairs of legs to throw his arms around me. Then he led us past the people on the couch, tossing out introductions and in the same breath telling me not to worry about names. Chris and I sat down. Tommy leaned a shoulder on the wall.

“Tell me how you've been. How are you enjoying L.A.? What have you been doing with yourself out here?” He lobbed the questions at me rapid-fire and didn't stay still for more than two seconds at a stretch, rolling his neck, cracking his knuckles, bouncing from foot to foot.

Chris grinned. “Try not to mind Tommy. This is pre-performance adrenaline. His way of psyching himself up. I've tried to tell him he doesn't need the energy of an arena show here, but he never listens.”

He shook out his arms. “Babe, you know I can't play without my ritual.”

Now I understood how Tommy could eat the way I'd witnessed, but still remain wiry. He must work onstage like we did in the racecar. I smiled at him. “I understand rituals.” I filled them in on my exploits of the past few days, including the identification of Billy's body.

“I always thought those two punks would come to a bad end,” Chris put in.

Tommy growled. “No more than they deserved.” Tommy had owned the car destroyed by Edward, Billy, and Holden's greed. We'd all been friends with the driver who'd died as a result.

We were silent a moment with our memories. It was almost a year and three months since the tragedy. Losing a teammate would forever weigh on us, despite Tommy and Chris having a successful return to Daytona and the parties involved—Billy, Holden, and the driver they'd paid to run our car off the road—paying for their crimes with community service, monitoring, fines, and even jail time.

Besides, I was sure none of us thought Billy and Holden had paid enough.
Or maybe Billy had? Could his death be due to what he'd done in Daytona? If so, will Holden be next?
Unlikely, so long after the fact.

We caught up in between songs while the next band played their set, and when they finished, Tommy popped up from the bench he'd perched on. “Showtime!” He grabbed a padded guitar case and moved to the door. The room got busy for the next five minutes, as the previous band stored instruments in cases or collected their gear and left.

I thought about the musical history that green room had seen. Since the club's opening in 1957, everyone from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Elton John to Led Zepplin, Pearl Jam, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers had played there. And Johnny Cash. And Prince. The club was legendary, and the green room had held them all.

Chris turned to me with a bottle of water she'd fished out of a small cooler under the windows. “Are you investigating Billy's death?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I'm asking some questions, but I don't have any idea where they're leading me. I'm looking into things only because people have asked me to do what I can to keep the racing world from looking like a group of murderers and crooks.”

She almost spit out her water. “There's no denying it's true, especially the crooks.”

“We don't have to emphasize it.”

She laughed. “What have you come up with?”

I explained what I'd learned of Billy's life and what I'd uncovered so far. “What's amazing is how he seemed to have found a new set of shady types here, in a new business environment, like this club of local businessmen who had to be up to no good. Get this, one of the club's former members was Richard Arena. He was part of this ‘Big Dog Breakfast Club' Billy had joined. Along with his father, Edward, also known as Ed Grant, and his uncle, Coleman Sherain. Coleman is Holden's father.”

“That's quite a family you have there, Kate.”

“Trust me, I want no part of it, although somehow I keep getting sucked back in.”

“The name of that club rings a bell.” She tapped an index finger against her cheek. “I've heard of them. Never knew who was in it, but it doesn't surprise me to hear Arena was.”

“What had you heard?”

“Whispers. The sort of thing where everyone has an idea, but no one wanted to admit to knowing for sure.” She eyed me. “That's the group to go to when there aren't normal people you can hire. And by ‘normal,' I mean legal.”

I hadn't expected that response.

Chris nodded. “Whether you need money laundered, insider information on a deal, or someone gotten rid of, that's the group to see.”

Holy shit, like the Mob?
“They
do
that kind of thing?”

“Or hire out. That's where to make the connections you need.”

I dropped my head into my hands as Tommy played a riff on stage and fans screamed.
What did I get myself into this time?

She shrugged. “Like I said, some family you've got there.”

The two sets Tommy played with his protégé band were amazing, and I felt special being an obvious friend of the rock star in the room. Chris and I left the club together sometime after one in the morning, half an hour after Tommy had finally stopped playing. Tommy had encouraged us both to join him and the band for a meal at an all-night diner. We'd both declined.

I was tired enough as it was the next morning, but fatigue didn't stop me from giving everything I had to the morning's activities: a visit to breast cancer patients with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

I'd made plenty of hospital and care center visits in the year and a half I'd been working with the BCRF and Beauté. This one had extra impact, due to two women in their thirties.

Erin Charlton had been selected to be one of my “grid girls” for the race. She'd gotten the all-clear on her own bout of breast cancer, but she was back at the hospital supporting her sister-in-law, Janel, through a first round of chemo. We chatted about their excitement that Erin would be at the race and about their treatments. I asked Erin how she'd gotten through her own last rounds, knowing Janel had been diagnosed with the same disease.

“I won't tell you it was easy. But Janel—” Erin gestured to her sister-in-law, currently hooked up to an IV “—was my rock through my own treatment. She got me through, and now I'll be here for her.”

“It must seem like life is too unfair.”

Janel smiled at me. “There's a lot of anger. Unfocused, since there's no one to blame.”

Erin took Janel's hand. “We've both come to the point of…what is it? Acceptance?”

“Forgiveness,” Janel said quietly.

Erin smiled. “Getting mad at God or the universe doesn't help. But you're still angry. Janel and I both had to let go of it and forgive. Accept. Know the anger didn't do anything to anyone, it only hurt us. Letting go of it actually made us stronger.”

Her words resonated deep inside me. I absorbed the idea of forgiveness. Of acceptance. I might not be fighting a deadly disease, but I had my own troubles. And I felt the truth of her words. Fighting only caused me more pain.