THE NEXT TO DIE (19 page)

Lieutenant Linn flipped through her notebook and scanned a particular page. “Um, on top of being your number-one fan, Ms. Stoddard was also a very rich young woman. With no evidence of a break-in, and not a single item missing from her home—we can eliminate robbery as a motive. So it looks like a crime of passion or revenge. Libby was stabbed eleven times. The coroner estimates the time of death was between five and eight o’clock.” Lieutenant Linn glanced at him for a moment. “Apparently, Libby put up a fight. There’s evidence of a struggle. We know she scratched her assailant, because skin fragments were found under her fingernails. We also found traces of stage makeup mingled in with the loose skin tissue. Ms. Stoddard was also raped. We were able to draw a semen sample, and determine the blood type.”

“Type O?” Avery whispered.

She nodded.

Avery swallowed hard. “Why is this happening?” he murmured.

“Would you agree to giving us a semen sample?” she gently asked. “It might eliminate you as a suspect.”

“I can’t say right now.” Avery muttered, shaking his head. “I think I need a lawyer. I better not say anything else.”

Dayle turned off the duel shower heads, grabbed a towel, and stepped out of the stall. Patting herself dry, she moved through a cloud of steam and wiped the condensation from the mirror. She frowned at her reflection. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep last night. Thank God for Oil of Olay—or the stuff she called Oil of Olay. It was from some clinic in France, and worked just like Oil of Olay on wrinkles—only it cost seventy bucks an ounce.

She had an interview with
Premiere
magazine in ninety minutes. It was just a one-page fluff piece—with an accompanying full-page photo that had been shot in a studio over a month ago. But she still had to look good for the interview—to be held over an intimate lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. They always reported how she looked, what she was wearing, and what she was eating during these things. Dayle planned to pin her hair up, pick at her Cobb salad, and on her bed, she’d already laid out the black Givenchy short-sleeve dress that always made her look thin.

Dennis had already let them know that she wouldn’t be answering any questions about Leigh Simone or Estelle Collier. She’d hibernated inside her apartment all day yesterday, screening her calls.

Dayle dried her hair and fixed her face. With the towel wrapped around her, she stepped out to the bedroom, and glanced over at her dress on the bed. She suddenly froze. A chill raced through her. Pinned to the dress was a page torn from a magazine. Someone had just been in her bedroom. For all she knew, they could still be in the apartment.

For a moment, Dayle stood paralyzed. Then she took a step toward the bed and gazed down at the calling card they’d left. The magazine clipping was of a woman on a sailboat. It looked like part of an ad for a vacation getaway. In black marker, they’d scribbled across the top of the page:
WE FOUND CINDY ZELLERBACK
.

Dayle didn’t know what it meant. She backed toward her nightstand, reached for the phone, and called down to the front desk.

“This is the lobby, Ms. Sutton.”

“Hello, Todd?” she whispered urgently. “I’ve had a break-in….”

“Hey, Mom, your cell phone’s ringing!” Danny called from the front door.

“Well, find out who it is, sweetie!” Sean was loading her collection of law books into the car. She planned to haul them over to the office this afternoon. Shoving another box in the back, she straightened up and wiped the sweat off her forehead. She glanced over at her son.

Danny stood in the doorway, the cellular phone to his ear. The color seemed to drain from her son’s face, and his mouth dropped open.

“Who is it?” she asked, hurrying up the front walkway.

Danny covered the mouthpiece. “It’s
Dayle Sutton!
” he exclaimed.

Sean laughed. “It’s okay, honey. Thanks.” She took the phone, and gave him a thumb signal to go play. “Hello, Dayle? How are you doing?”

“I’ve had better days,” Dayle said. “Could I possibly come see you?”

Sean hesitated. Watching Danny run out to the front yard, she thought about the people who were following Dayle around. Except for three reporters who had called her office, there had been no backlash from having her name mentioned in that news story yesterday; no calls at home, and no strange cars parked on her block. She wanted to keep it that way. “Um, rather than you come out here, I’d just as soon meet you in the city.”

“Will I be dragging you away from your family?”

“No. Actually, I’m dropping off some things at my office at four-thirty. I’ll be a couple of hours. Could you meet me there?”

“Yes, your office would be great. Thanks.”

“Are you okay? You sound tense.”

“I just need a friend right now.”

“If it’s any help, Nick, this woman spent some time in Mexico years ago. My guess is that she’s back in California now.” Dayle fought the inclination to whisper into the limousine phone. She stared at the back of Hank’s head. The glass partition was up, but she wondered if he could still hear her.

They weren’t far from Sean’s office. Dayle had been with Hank for the last four hours. He’d arrived while the police were still searching her apartment. They didn’t find anything, and nothing was missing. In fact, there was no evidence of a break-in. Todd, at the front desk, said he couldn’t understand how somebody might have slipped past him. The cops probably had her pegged as a total paranoid.

Dayle didn’t show them the note. Once she’d remembered Cindy and their one-night stand on the boat, she didn’t want to explain the message to anyone. She lied to the police and said she’d discovered the front door open after emerging from her shower. Actually, she hadn’t dead-bolted the door—in case Hank came early to pick her up for the interview. He had his own key to the apartment. He was the only one with a key—besides her.

She’d been a half hour late for her interview—and terribly distracted through the whole ordeal. She kept thinking about the “positively revolting” shoot down in Mexico so many years ago, Cindy something with the Winnie the Pooh tattoo, and that sailboat. Dayle barely touched her Cobb salad, and twice she had to ask the interviewer to repeat a question. Nevertheless, by the time it was all over, she’d still managed to charm the guy.

Hank had waited out by the limo during her lunch. Dayle couldn’t help wondering about old reliable Hank. Had he been forced into letting someone duplicate his key to her apartment? Or had he left that note himself? He’d been with her for seven years, but how well did she really knew him? He was just this simple, sweet—almost neuter—hump of a guy who liked mystery novels and The Beatles trivia. In all the miles they’d driven together, she’d barely scratched the surface with Hank. Yet her trust in him was unwavering—until now.

She’d raised the limo’s glass partition for her call to Nick. She needed him to track down the whereabouts of Cindy Zellerback: Caucasian, red hair or possibly blond, late thirties. It was a rush job.

Dayle wasn’t sure how much damage this Cindy affair could cause. After all, it was an isolated incident from fifteen years ago. Was this the only ammunition these people had to use on her? If so, maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. At least, that was what she kept telling herself.

She wanted Sean to tell her the same thing. Cradling the limo’s phone against her ear, Dayle dug into her purse. “Listen, Nick, if you find something in the next hour or so, here’s where I’ll be…” She read Sean’s office phone and fax numbers from her business card.

“I’m on top of it,” Nick replied. “And I should have that license plate and credit card trace for you by tomorrow.”

“Good boy,” Dayle said.

“Ciao, Ms. Sutton.” Nick hung up.

Dayle listened to the dead air. She was still looking at Hank in the front seat. “Hank, can you hear me?” she said, into the phone.

He didn’t flinch at all. Dayle hung up the telephone. She continued to stare at him on the other side of the glass divider. “Hank?” she said. “Hank, you can hear me, can’t you?”

He didn’t flinch. He seemed totally focused on the road ahead.

Dayle pressed the button on the armrest, and the divider window descended with a low mechanical him. “Hank?” she said.

His eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Yes, ma’am?”

Those eyes were so guileless. He patiently waited for her to say something. Good old Hank. What was she thinking?

With a tired smile, Dayle sat back again. “Never mind. For a moment there, I thought you’d made a wrong turn, but I was mistaken.”

“It happened so long ago,” Dayle said, handing Sean a book from the packing box. “I vaguely recall someone taking my picture with Cindy while we were on the beach. God help me, I think we were topless at the time.”

Sean stood on a ladder, filing law volumes on the top shelf of her bookcase. Her office was taking shape: sea-foam green walls with white trim. No more drop cloths.

“Well, Dayle,” she said. “I don’t think your career will suffer. Like you say, it happened too long ago—and with some nobody, It’s old news.” She held her hand out. “Volume seventeen, please.”

Frowning, Dayle gave the law book to her. “You’re probably right. But I want to be prepared when this thing goes public. I mean, maybe it’s
out there
already. Right now, this Cindy could be talking to Jane Pauley.”

Climbing down from the ladder, Sean chuckled. “If it’ll make you feel better, have a look.” She found the remote, and switched on her TV. “But I think all the show business news is about your future costar, Avery Cooper.”

The TV came on: “I’m Mrs. Russell Marshall. But you can call me Elsie.”

“Hi, Elsie!”

“Oh, shit,” Dayle muttered, plopping down on the sofa.

“Maybe I’m just a housewife,” Elsie said. “But as a mother and a good Christian, I think my opinion counts for something….”

“She kind of makes you wish they’d start feeding ‘good Christians’ to the lions again,” Sean remarked, ready to switch channels.

“Wait a minute,” Dayle said. She heard Elsie mention Maggie McGuire.

“…and I’m sorry she’s dead. But if you’ll excuse me, I wouldn’t exactly say she was a shining example of motherhood—as some people maintain. She claimed to be proud of her homosexual son who now has AIDS. Well, I’m sorry, but ‘proud’? Come on! How exactly did he get AIDS? Was she proud of that?”

“My God,” Sean said. “How does she get away with it?”

On TV, Elsie was now meandering toward her desk. “Quite frankly, I hope people have sense enough to see the truth behind the tragedy here. We’ve all seen her hard-core porn movie. I have a difficult time respecting a woman who would make a movie like that….”

“What’s she talking about?” Dayle asked. “What porn movie?”

Sean stared at her. “You don’t know?” She turned down the volume. “Maggie McGuire did a stag film back in the late forties. Now it’s suddenly resurfaced. Her body’s barely cold, and last night they were showing Maggie’s old skin flick on
First Edition
.”

Dayle glanced back at the TV. Elsie was still talking, but with the volume so low, Dayle could only make out her saccharine tone, and the audience laughing. She’d missed the joke. That was what Maggie McGuire had now become: a joke. The accomplishments of her forty-year career suddenly took second place to this scandal. “My God,” Dayle murmured, gazing at Elsie on the screen. She looked so superior and smug. This humiliation of the late Maggie McGuire was a victory for Elsie Marshall and the radical right.

Maggie’s personal crusades and causes suddenly seemed wrong, and Elsie’s logic rang true. Maggie McGuire had stood by her gay son,
but this was a woman who had appeared in pornographic movies. Her opinions couldn’t count for much. She was a bad example of motherhood
.

The same thing had happened to Tony Katz and Leigh Simone after their untimely deaths. “They all died in shame,” Dayle murmured, staring at the TV.

Sean squinted at her. “What?”

Dayle got to her feet. “There was a scandal when each one was killed—Tony, Leigh, now Maggie. Their reputations were ruined. Tony—caught with his pants down, and Leigh—a drug addict. Now, Maggie, a porn star.”

Sean was shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Slow down—”

“It wasn’t enough that they killed them. They had to ruin their reputations too, disgrace them, take away their credibility. Tony, Leigh, and Maggie, they were outspoken liberals, and they all got killed—”

The telephone rang.

“Go on, I’m listening,” Sean said. “It’s just my fax machine.”

“Their names were dragged through the mud,” Dayle continued. “They died in shame. Their careers and their causes became like a joke.”

“What do you mean by ‘causes’?”

“They advocated gun control—or gay rights. They were pro-choice, or they fought against censorship and capitol punishment, you name it. These are the kind of hot issues that make certain people crazy—crazy enough to quote the Old Testament—or march and protest, or even kill.”

“So where do you come in?” Sean asked.

“Maybe I pissed them off when I spoke out about Leigh’s death. They might know about the movie we’re going to make. I keep thinking about this Cindy business. Maybe that’s how they’re going to drag me though the mud—once they’ve killed me.”

Sean frowned. “No. It’s just not sensational enough. So you got drunk one night fifteen years ago and experimented with another woman. This is the new millennium. Who cares?”

The telephone rang again. “The machine will pick up,” Sean said.

“But whoever is behind this isn’t living in the new millennium,” Dayle said, over the phone recording. “They don’t want any liberal martyrs and cult heroes. So they’re making their celebrity victims look sleazy—”

“Yo, this is Nick Brock, and I’m calling for Dayle Sutton—”

“Oh, grab it, grab it!” Dayle steered Sean toward the phone on the desk. Sean picked up the receiver.

“Hello, Sean Olson speaking.” She listened for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m not your ‘honey doll,’ but yes, she’s right here.” Sean put a hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s your detective friend. He sent the fax.”

“Don’t hang up on him,” Dayle said. She checked the fax machine.

“I’m not supposed to hang up on you,” Sean said into the phone. “Though I’m sorely tempted.”

Dayle glanced at the first fax page. Nick had scribbled a note on the cover sheet:
Cynthia Zellerback’s current address and phone number are on page 4. Chow! Nick
.

“Tell him I’ll call him in a couple of minutes,” Dayle said. She watched the fourth page inch out of the machine.

“She’ll call you right back, Romeo,” Sean said, then hung up.

Two pages of the fax were from a four-month-old article in the
Los Angeles Times
. Dayle hardly recognized the dowdy, middle-aged woman in the news photo as that girl from the boat. The once lustrous, long red hair now appeared short and brittle. Cindy’s features had turned hard. The picture had been taken outside, with some steps in the background, perhaps a church or courthouse. Cindy looked so hardened and bitter, squinting in the sunlight.

Dayle read the headline:
KILLER OF HUSBAND AND CHILD PAROLED, WOMAN SERVED 12 YEARS FOR MURDERING HER FAMILY
.