Swimsuit Body (4 page)

I'm speechless.
Power walking?
Since when does my brother, who avoids all forms of exercise and who smokes cigarettes, go power walking? And why is this the first I'm hearing of it? I recall how evasive he was when I'd asked about his plans for this evening. Did he have a date with Gladys?

“I'd like that,” I reply when I've found my voice. I would sooner walk over hot coals than go power walking in my free time—it's less strenuous, and blistered soles would give me an excuse to put my feet up—but I'm taking her up on the invitation, because I need to find out what the deal is with Arthur and his henna-haired hottie.

CHAPTER FOUR

I do the math as I drive north on Highway One to my next stop. Gladys Sedgwick has a granddaughter who's thirty-five, a year older than my brother, which means Gladys has to be at least twice Arthur's age. My head swims thinking about it. Maybe I'm making too much of an innocent friendship, but my brother has a way of getting into situations that fall under the heading of Weird Shit That Doesn't Happen to Normal People. And it always ends the same way: a call to Dr. Sandefur, a packed bag, and a stay at the puff. I can only pray this isn't one of those situations.

Fifteen minutes later, I arrive at the Chens' Asian-themed split-level, in the residential country club of Paso Verde. It's the primary residence of the owners, but they're frequently out of town, which is why they need a property manager. Currently they're in Beijing where their export firm is headquartered. I do my walk-through and feed the koi, which are the size of puppies and snap greedily at my fingers as I sprinkle pellets into the pond. By the time I lock up, it's dark out. I swing by my brother's place on my way home and find his bag of dirty laundry inside the door but no Arthur. I catch a faint whiff of an expensive scent that I recognize as Chanel No. 5.

A perfume a wealthy older lady would wear.

Sleep is slow to come that night; the eventful day has my mind churning. The following morning when my alarm goes off at the usual ungodly hour, I have to pry myself out of bed. Yawning, I make my way down the hall to the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of coffee. A fresh pot greets me each morning when I get up, thanks to the programming feature on my coffeemaker. I'm pouring some steaming brew into a mug when the thump of the cat flap on the back door signals the return of my tomcat, Hercules, from his nocturnal prowls. He pads over to sit at my feet, meowing.

“What, you think you're the only one with problems?” I say, looking down at him.

I named him Hercules because he's a badass, all brawn and slinky stripes. I bet he thinks he's all that with the ladies, but I had him neutered when I took him in as a stray several years ago, so there's only so much trouble he can get into. (Though judging from his torn ear, he's fought his share of battles.) He continues to meow as I mix a bowl of cat food. Leaving him to it, I sit down at my 1940s red Formica dinette to savor my coffee and one peaceful moment of the day. The kitchen of my Craftsman bungalow, with its period details, is a reminder of an era before the invention of the handheld devices that make me accessible whenever a toilet overflows or a coffeemaker goes kaput or some genius has the bright idea of taking a bubble bath in a Jacuzzi.

Fifteen minutes later, after I've finished my coffee and showered, I'm headed out the door. The sky is lightening above the rooftops of the older homes that line my street. The air is cool with the fog that rolls in most mornings in summer. It's too early for any of my neighbors to be out and about; the only sound I hear is that of breaking waves. I live two blocks from the ocean, which is the other reason I bought my bungalow. So I can fall asleep each night to the lullaby of the sea.

I drive to the Voakses', and I'm relieved to find the ants haven't retaken Hamburger Hill. Next, I head over to the Mastersons' condo, by the yacht harbor, where I replace their old broken toaster with the new one I picked up at the Sears in Harborview Plaza, and make sure the stash of porn magazines belonging to their nineteen-year-old son, who's home from college for the summer, is tucked away where Esmeralda won't come across it while she's cleaning—she spends enough time praying for lost souls as it is. At the Willets' Cape Cod, I see that the gophers have been at the tubers again. I replenish the supply at the garden center, then it's on to my next stop, the Belknaps' shingled cottage on Cliff Drive, where the lady who lives next door comes over to complain about the renters who were sunbathing in the nude. I wonder what she'd say about my having bared my boobs to a perfect stranger, a devout Muslim at that, in the Middle East.

I'm tempted to stop at Casa Blanca, if only to make sure the house is still standing, but I don't normally drop in at my vacation rentals when they're occupied, and what if Delilah's home? She might think I'm some creepy fan who wants to be her new BFF. Besides, if anything really bad had happened, like the house burning down or a flood from a burst pipe, I would have been informed by now. I leave a message on her voicemail instead.

Two days later, when she still hasn't returned my call, I give in to the gnawing feeling in my gut and head over to Casa Linda Estates to see what's what. Driving south on Highway One, I consider the many faces of Delilah Ward. There's the seemingly down-to-earth woman I met. The spoiled diva who'd driven me crazy with her long list of requirements. The grieving widow shown on the cover of
People
magazine, her head bowed in grief at her husband's memorial service. The actress who starred in the teen slasher pic that rocketed her to stardom and who was later nominated for an Emmy for her role in the HBO original series
Hard Rain
.

The movie Delilah is filming in Cypress Bay is a remake of
Suspicion
, the 1941 picture starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine about a wife who suspects her new husband is out to kill her. It's titled
Devil's Slide
after the famously treacherous stretch of Highway One south of San Francisco. Delilah was signed, for the role played by Joan Fontaine, after she blew the competition out of the water with her screen test. I'm sure she'll rock the part. I'd seen her in enough roles to know how talented she is. She's that rarest of creatures: the hot blonde from central casting who can act. What remains to be seen is whether or not she was putting on an act with me.

It's 11:00 a.m. when I pull up to the gates at Casa Linda Estates. I wave my key fob to activate the gate at the entrance, and as it swings open, another vehicle, a black Escalade, glides past me in the opposite lane and through the gate at the exit. I take notice only because it has tinted windows; you don't see many of those around here. I imagine it belongs to one of the movie people who's been to visit Delilah Ward, but I give it no further thought as I wind my way through quiet streets lined with Spanish colonials and Mediterranean-style villas, driving at a crawl due to all the speed bumps, which I'm convinced outnumber the children, dogs, or ducks in the gated community. Ten minutes later, I arrive at Casa Blanca. Easily the most impressive property on the cul-de-sac, the four-thousand-square-foot villa boasts a barrel-tile clay roof, a columned arcade that forms a dramatic entry to the house, and decks that look out on the ocean in back.

The massive front door is made of Brazilian hardwood with raised panels carved in a Mayan design and fitted with a wrought-iron pull. I ring the doorbell, and after I've waited long enough to conclude that no one is home, I use my key to let myself in. I see no sign of either Delilah or her dog, but I'm relieved to find the house spotless. Floors mopped and carpets vacuumed, furniture polished, the granite countertops in the kitchen gleaming. Clothes tumble in the dryer, and I'm reminded that I still have my brother's laundry, which is washed and folded in my SUV except for the red Stanford hoodie that I'm wearing. It must have fallen out of Arthur's overstuffed laundry bag before I took his clothes in to launder them. I discovered it this morning while I was on my rounds and put it on after my own sweatshirt got soaked as I was changing a water filter.

I step through the French doors that open onto the patio. The early morning fog has burned off, and the sky is blue with fluffy clouds skimming overhead. The swimming pool glitters with reflected sunlight. I notice the side gate is open. Delilah must have taken her dog for a walk and neglected to lock up. I'm walking over to secure it when I notice a blond, bikini-clad woman lying face-down on one of the chaises by the pool. Delilah Ward, as I suspected, I see when I draw closer. She appears to have dozed off. I'm thinking I should wake her before she gets any more sunburned but I'm hesitant to do so. I know from the confidentiality agreement her assistant had me sign how fiercely she guards her privacy. She might get angry that I let myself in.

Finally, I decide I have a moral obligation, if only to prevent her from looking like a lobster when filming starts. I come to an abrupt halt as I'm crossing the patio when I notice her backside isn't the only thing that's red. There's a pool of blood beneath the chaise and her hair is bloodied. Had she fallen and hurt herself? That happened to me once before I got sober. I woke one morning to find my pillow bloody and a bump on my forehead from a fall I'd taken the night before that I had no memory of. Delilah's injury, however, looks more serious than mine was.

My heart is pounding as I rush to her aid.
Please, God, let her be okay.

That's when I see the bullet hole in the back of her head.

CHAPTER FIVE

I stand frozen, my mind refusing to believe what my eyes are seeing. Then, in my panicked state, I do the one thing I would ordinarily know not to do: I mess with a crime scene. Thinking she might still be alive, I flip her over—actually, wrestle her onto her back is more like it; there's no flipping a hundred and ten pounds of dead weight unless you're Arnold Schwarzenegger. But she's not breathing, and I can't find a pulse. That's when I notice her eyes are staring sightlessly up at the sky.

I back away on rubber legs, gulping in air to combat the nausea that threatens to further contaminate the crime scene. As I stare at the corpse, I see in my mind's eye the one I discovered rotting in a footlocker the previous summer, which turned out to be the remains of my long-lost mother. A horror show never to be repeated, I had thought. Now it's happening again. What makes it even more shocking, apart from the fact that Delilah was famous, is that she was someone I met and liked her. She was so full of life. How can she be dead? Not just dead, murdered.

When my head stops spinning, I go back inside to dial 911. It will mean having to deal with Detective Spence Breedlove, my high school crush and present-day nemesis, but that can't be helped. After I've made the call, I sit down at the distressed pine table in the breakfast nook and wait for the cops to arrive. I recognize Esmeralda's touch in the vase of pink ‘Cécile Brünner' roses from the garden that stands at the center of the table, but it makes me think of flowers for a funeral. My eyes fill with tears. Poor Delilah. So young, so beautiful. She was America's sweetheart.
People
magazine's favorite cover girl. Who could have killed her? And why?

I spy her phone lying next to the vase. Unthinkingly, I pick it up and swipe the screen. An image appears of Delilah's Yorkie wearing a doggie tux and looking embarrassed. I scroll through the text messages, thinking they might hold a clue—evidence of a disgruntled employee, a jilted lover, a crazed stalker that would shed light on Delilah's murder. The most recent message is from the director Karol Bartosz saying he was on his way over. It was sent forty minutes ago, around the time I spotted the black Escalade on my way here. There's also a ridiculously long text exchange between Delilah and her personal assistant involving arrangements for a flower delivery.

When I hear the sound of a car engine in the driveway, I quickly find my Tumi messenger bag and pull out my iPad. By the time the first responders are at the door, I've downloaded the data from Delilah's device onto mine. Illegal? Possibly. Unethical for sure. But knowing Spence Breedlove, he'll try to pin the murder on me unless I come up with an alternate theory.

The first responders are soon joined by the ME, who is followed by the crime scene techs, a young man and an older woman wearing Tyvek jumpsuits and booties. They're still combing over the crime scene when Spence arrives. Wordlessly, he strides past me with only a glance in my direction before he steps out onto the patio. I watch him walk over to the section of patio strung with yellow crime scene tape where the techs are collecting forensic evidence and snapping photos. He's the only one in civvies, and I can't help but notice how nicely he fills out the fitted charcoal blazer and light-gray trousers he wears. He's not your stereotypical high school quarterback gone to seed. Instead, he looks like a former pro athlete who earns millions in product endorsements, the only bulge that isn't muscle the sidearm holstered underneath his blazer.

There goes the biggest mistake of my life.

Actually, the second biggest if you count my drinking, though the two are intertwined. It started with a high school crush—I worshipped him from afar throughout our freshman and sophomore years—and ended with my reputation going up in smoke along with his beloved Camaro. Long story short, I lost my virginity to Spence Breedlove in a drunken hookup at a party. I have little memory of the act itself, but the torment I suffered in the weeks that followed I recall vividly. The graffiti on the bathroom walls at school, the condoms stuffed in my locker, the nasty things said about me on MySpace, and the names I was called to my face. What hurt most was that Spence never apologized for taking advantage of me or for blabbing about it afterward. He treated me the same after we had sex as before: like I didn't exist. When I torched his car, I think it was to get him to notice me as much as to get back at him. He's had it in for me ever since.

He confers with the techs and issues orders to the uniforms who are milling around outside, then comes back inside. He pauses on the threshold, his eyes meeting mine in a moment of silent communication that seems to convey our entire history, before he crosses the sunlit kitchen to where I sit. His gaze drops to the glass of orange juice on the table in front of me that I'd been sipping earlier when I was feeling light-headed. “You always know where the best parties are.”

“Can it, Spence. I'm not in the mood,” I snap.

“Really. I'd have thought you'd be feeling no pain.”

Heat crawls into my cheeks, since I know, as I pointedly sip my OJ, it would surely have held a slug of vodka back in the day. “I'm in AA. Not that it's any of your business.”

“It is when you keep turning up at crime scenes.”

“Are you suggesting I murdered Delilah Ward?”

“I don't know. Did you?”

I glare at him. “Screw you.”

We lock eyes, and I see he's struggling to keep a lid on his temper. “Why don't you tell me what happened, then,” he says in his formal cop's voice. He lowers his six-foot-four frame into the chair opposite me and pulls out his notebook. His face is a study in manly contours; his short hair resembles blond turf. He was always too good-looking for his own good. “Did you know the victim?”

“I was acquainted with her, yes. The house belongs to clients of mine. She's … she was renting it for the summer.” I gulp as I remember to use the past tense, feeling my stomach start to roll again.

“I'll need their names.”

I provide the contact info for the Blankenships, who live in Texas and rarely visit. After he's jotted down the information, he looks up to ask, “How long have you worked for them?”

“Over a year. I take care of rentals and any maintenance that needs to be done.”

“What brings you here today?”

I hesitate before I realize the confidentiality agreement I signed no longer applies now that Delilah is dead. “Honestly? I was worried. Not about her,” I'm quick to add at the probing look he gives me. “The place was a disaster zone when I stopped by the other day. Delilah explained that she'd had some people over and said it wouldn't happen again, but …” I shrug.

“Did she answer when you knocked?”

“No. She was dead by the time I got here. I let myself in with my key.”

“Are you in the habit of snooping?”

A reference to my arrest for breaking and entering last summer. I bristle at the dig, feeling my cheeks warm. “I wasn't
snooping
. I was doing my job,” I reply indignantly.

Spence nods and his eyes meet mine across the table. I'm glad he stopped wearing those tinted contact lenses that made him look as though he ought to be driving a Porsche with vanity plates—he claimed they were his wife's idea; she thought they made him look like Brad Pitt. He traded them for a pair of stylish wire-rim glasses, which show his natural eye color to be gray blue. “Was anyone else here when you arrived?” he asks in a less combative tone.

“No. Not that I know of, anyway. The killer might've slipped out back when he heard me come in. I noticed the gate was open.” I look out the window. Outside, the techs are bagging the swimsuit-clad body of Delilah Ward. Reflections of clouds skim across the pool beyond. I hear the crackle of a two-way as a uniform speaks into his shoulder mike. Then I remember something else. “One other thing. … On my way here, I noticed a black Escalade leaving as I was coming in through the gates. Custom with tinted windows. It seems to be what everyone in Hollywood is driving these days, so I figured it was someone who'd been to see Delilah.” I glance at my watch—it's noon, and I got here shortly before eleven. “That was about hour ago.”

“You didn't happen to get a license plate number?”

“I didn't think of it at the time. Why would I? It wasn't until I got to the house and saw her …” I trail off, hugging myself to keep from shivering. I'm chilled to the bone, though it must be ninety degrees inside with the sun streaming through the French doors in the breakfast nook. “I didn't know she was dead at first. That's why I moved her. To see if … if she was still breathing.”

“You contaminated the crime scene.”

“I didn't mean to. I panicked, okay? I thought I could still save her. So sue me. Or arrest me. Whatever.”

His stern expression softens. “I wasn't accusing you.”

If that was an apology, I'm in no mood for it. “I'll remember for next time,” I retort sarcastically.

He says no more on the subject. “When you were here before, did you notice anything unusual?”

“Other than evidence of recreational drug use, nothing criminal, no.”

“She was doing drugs?” He looks up from his notebook.

“I couldn't say for a fact. Let's just say no sober person would permit drug use in her home.”

“Wasn't she in rehab a while back?”

“Rehab isn't a magic bullet,” I say, then wince, adding, “Pardon the expression.”

“It worked for you.”

“If by that you mean AA, that's no guarantee, either. Some of us have an easier time staying sober than others.” I don't judge. How can I? As I sip my juice, part of me wishes it were vodka.

“If you think of anything else, let me know,” he says, handing me his card as we're wrapping it up.

“You should talk to Delilah's assistant, Brianna. She'd know of any meetings that were on the calendar. Also the housekeeper. She was here earlier. She might have seen something.”

Spence jots down their phone numbers. Finally, he slips his notebook back into his pocket and pushes himself to his feet. He says he'll call and arrange a time for me to give my formal statement at the station. I stand and sling my messenger bag over my shoulder, still feeling shaky. The techs have moved indoors and are combing the house for evidence. I almost bump into the woman as I'm crossing the kitchen on my way out. Then something else occurs to me. I pause and turn around. Spence is on his phone, issuing orders to whoever is at the other end.

“I've got Ellis and Hansen on the door-to-door. You get hold of Sullivan? I want him and McBride to cover the surrounding area. Beach, roadways, the bike path that runs along the cliff. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything.” He notices me and holds up a finger, signaling
Be with you in a sec
.

The male tech moves past me, a ghost in his white jumpsuit. “There was a dog,” I inform Spence when he hangs up.

“A dog,” he repeats.

“Delilah's Yorkie. Black and tan. Rhinestone collar. He was here last time.”

Spence raises an eyebrow as if waiting for me to explain why this is any concern of his.

“I'm worried he may have run off.” I indicate once more the gate to the patio that stands open. “He might be lost.”

Spence shrugs. “Call animal control.”

“But shouldn't you—”

“Good luck finding him,” he says curtly, turning his back to place another call.