City of Mirrors Read online

  “Did you know Jenny Parson well?” She opened the refrigerator, letting its cold light escape into the warm kitchen.

  “Just enough to feel what a horrible waste her death is.”

  “Was she talented?”

  “Funny, Gwyn asked the same question. Would it matter less if she wasn’t talented?”

  “Gwyn? You went to the birthday party for Ben after discovering … ?”

  “Zaitlin wanted to know what had happened.” I blew my nose and tossed the Kleenex onto a pile of other discarded tissues. I looked more closely at Celia’s face. “Have you been crying?”

  She nodded. “I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again. Will you? After what you saw?”

  “I haven’t been the same since Colin died so I don’t know what ‘the same’ is anymore.”

  Retrieving what she needed, she slammed the refrigerator door and glanced at the TV. Jenny’s face had disappeared and now there was a picture of the alley, police cars, and the body bag containing her corpse on a gurney being loaded into the coroner’s van. The gurney hit a bump, and the body moved and jerked as if Jenny were kicking, trying to get out. We both turned away from the awful image.

  She placed a baguette and some Brie on the table. “The bread is stale.” She sat down and poured us more wine.

  “I have to tell you something, Celia.” I stared into my glass.

  She pushed the cheese plate closer and waited for me to continue.

  I raised my head. “It’s … it’s about the man who hit you.”

  Her body went rigid. “What about him?”

  “I met him. He was introduced to me as Leo Heath. Not Ward.”

  “Introduced? Where was this?” She balled up a tissue, tightening her fist around it, her knuckles going white.

  I gulped wine. “Tonight at Ben’s party. In Zaitlin’s office.”

  “In Robert’s office at his house?” Her brow furrowed as she tried to take in what I was telling her. “What was Ward or whatever his name is doing there?”

  “He owns a security firm and does some jobs for Robert. His guards were working the party.”

  “You’re telling me Robert knows him?” The fear I had seen in her this morning returned full force.

  “Robert had called him about Jenny’s death. He’s a Hollywood fixer.”

  Her hand trembled as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Did Ward … Heath say anything to you?”

  “Not really. I mean, he knew I recognized him. I tried to dump a plate of food on him.”

  “What?”

  “I know it was stupid. But I felt I had to do something.”

  “You always have to do something. I never should have told you.”

  “Could Robert have sent him to Bella Casa?”

  “And have me show him the house without telling me? It doesn’t make sense.” She threw the wadded tissue onto the same pile. Her expression darkened. “What are you implying, Diana?”

  “Nothing.” I sat back. “I’m just telling you what happened.”

  “Well, don’t.” Standing, she walked the length of her kitchen, terry slippers scuffing on the planked floor. “I asked you to stay out of it.”

  I tore off a piece of bread. She was right—it was stale.

  “Oh, my God,” she blurted, pointing to the screen.

  There was a photo of me slumped down against the alley wall, clinging to my mother’s urn. Eyes half closed, lips drooping, I looked as if I’d been drinking rotgut out of the urn. Who had taken the picture?

  Celia clicked the remote, turning on the sound, sitting down again.

  “We now have more information on the murder of Jenny Parson,” said the news anchor. “This is a picture of the actress Diana Poole soon after the discovery of her friend’s body.”

  “Friend? She wasn’t my friend.”

  “What is that she’s holding?” the co-anchor asked.

  “It’s apparently the urn containing her mother’s ashes. According to Al Bailey, the doorman at the Beverly West condos, Ms. Poole used the urn to trick him into gaining entry into Ms. Parson’s condo.”

  “Oh, God, in the alley the doorman must’ve taken the picture with his cell phone.”

  “This case is getting more and more bizarre,” the co-anchor smiled broadly.

  “Diana Poole’s mother, the famous actress Nora Poole, died last week of natural causes at the Hotel Bel Air,” the anchor said, as if that piece of information cleared up everything.

  “Turn it off.” I sat up and downed the last of my wine.

  Clicking the remote, Celia slid it angrily across the table, then stood. I peered up at her. Her mouth was set firm, her face pinched. “I want you to go.”

  “What?”

  “I told you to leave this alone. And you went and got involved.”

  “I didn’t search out Heath. He walked into a room where I was standing.”

  “I can’t trust you anymore, Diana.”

  “I know this has been a shock for you. We’ve both been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “You never approved of my relationship with Robert.”

  “You keep bringing that up. This has nothing to do with what I feel about you and Robert.”

  “It has everything to do with it! I don’t want to lose him. To lose everything.”

  “Did you want me to lie? Not tell you what happened?”

  “I’m not sure I believe you.” Her voice rose, angry and hurt. “You’re using this to create some kind of … I don’t know … distrust between Robert and me.”

  “That’s not true. What’s going on? Does Heath have some kind of hold on you? Or is it Zaitlin?”

  “You honestly think that Robert has …”

  “Why was Heath using an assumed name at Bella Casa?” I paused and asked in a softer voice. “Why did he beat you up, Celia?”

  Tears streaming down her face, she screamed at me, “Maybe because I looked like a woman who needed to be beaten up!”

  “You don’t mean that.” I reached for her hand.

  She recoiled from my touch. “Get out.” She swept past me and into the hallway. Stunned, I gathered the urn and my purse.

  The front door was open. Celia glared down at the floor.

  Stepping outside, I turned back to her. “Let me help you …”

  She slammed the door in my face. Celia and I had never had a major fight. But there was a disturbing finality to that closed door.

  Acting is a series of emotional adjustments or beats, as they are sometimes called. But the adjustments have already been made before the scene is played. The actor knows how the story will end. I know this is my cue to cry or to laugh, so I have already prepared my feelings because I’m aware this moment is coming. Now driving down the street to my house, unlocking the door, and turning on the lights in my living room, I was at a loss. I was not prepared for Celia’s reaction, for the possibility of losing her as a friend. I told myself we were both overwrought and I just needed to give her time. I hoped I was right.

  From the TV in the kitchen I could hear my name being tossed around by two female anchors.

  “Shut up!” I yelled at them. They didn’t.

  I set my purse and the urn on the coffee table. My gaze shifted to Colin’s Oscars. There was room on the mantel for another successful ghost. Picking up Mother, I placed her between his two awards.

  “We’re back together again after all these years.” I leaned my forehead against the hard stucco mantel. I wanted to cry but I was too tired.

  Tensing, I became aware of someone outside on my deck. I whirled around. Pressing his face against the sliding glass door, Ryan Johns peered in, looking like an aging lost boy. I let out my breath and opened the door. He rolled in with the salty cold air.

  “I feel s
obriety coming on. How about a nightcap?” He wriggled his eyebrows at me.

  “I’m going to bed.”

  He lingered, hands in his jacket pockets, beer belly hanging over the waist of his Bermuda shorts. “Diana, I vaguely remember hearing, in my sexually unfulfilled drunken haze thanks to you, somebody at the party say that Jenny Parson was murdered. Did you hear about it?”

  “It’s all over the TV. I discovered her body. You can go into the kitchen and learn all about it. I’m still going to bed.”

  “You found her body?” Confused, he ran his large hands through his red unruly hair. “How well did you know her?”

  “You don’t need to know someone well to find their corpse. We were working together on a movie, that’s all. We talked alone in her trailer yesterday evening.”

  “What about?”

  “She couldn’t remember her lines. Why? Did you know her?”

  “This’ll bring her father down here.” He edged crablike back out onto the deck and toward the stairs.

  “You know Jenny’s father?” I followed after him.

  “In a way.” He loped down the steps to the common pathway.

  “In what way?” I yelled after him.

  “I owe him money.” He ran up his steps and disappeared inside his house.

  My landline rang. Closing and locking the sliding doors, I answered it.

  “Don’t you ever answer your cell?” Zaitlin bellowed.

  “I turned it off.”

  “You’re all over the television holding your mother’s ashes, for God’s sake.”

  “I know. I think it was the doorman who took …”

  “Our insecure star, Jake Jackson, is chewing my ass out about it. He asked me if you’d gone fucking nuts.” Before I could respond, Zaitlin continued, “I’m sending a car for you tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Jackson wants a meeting to discuss if we go forward with the movie or not. And he wants to make sure you’re okay.”

  “In what way?”

  “‘Okay’ as in not fucking nutso.”

  “You know I’m not. And why a car? You think I’m so crazy I can’t drive?”

  “In case there are reporters outside your house. I don’t want any more mistakes, Diana.”

  “Mistakes? You mean like finding Jenny Parson in a garbage truck?” I was yelling now.

  “No, I mean your reaction to it.”

  “If you had done your job as producer I wouldn’t have been put in this position.”

  “All right. Let’s calm down. We’re all on edge. Just don’t bring your mother to the meeting.” He hung up.

  I slammed the phone down and stared at the urn dominating the mantel. The cherry wood looked substantial. Her nameplate shone. Maybe I should unpack her Oscar for Best Actress in a Starring Role and put it up there. Except I wasn’t sure where it was stored. I wasn’t sure where anything or anyone was.

  In bed, I took a sleeping pill and turned out the light. The TV flickered a bad black-and-white film. They weren’t all great.

  I thought about Ryan owing Jenny’s father money. He didn’t ask how Jenny was murdered. Nor did Celia. Nobody seemed interested in how she died or why. Except Ben. And why would the head of a security firm, a fixer, use an alias to look at Bella Casa? And then there was Beth Woods, our director, who thought Jenny was evil. Why did she think that?

  My mind wandered to tomorrow’s meeting with Jake Jackson. He had star power and an image to protect, a dangerous combination. Was he going to kill the movie? Or just kill me by recasting my part when they recast Jenny’s? One way or another we were all in danger. Somehow. I reached out my hand to the empty side of the bed. It was a futile attempt for comfort.

  The sound of a woman screaming bolted me out of my sleep. My heart leaping, I blinked at the TV. Joan Crawford, her mouth opened so wide you could park a truck in it, was screaming herself into a nervous breakdown. I didn’t blame her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  By nine o’clock in the morning, the fame suckers were gathering outside my house. Cameramen and reporters with microphones were focused on my front door with all the intensity of a group of sharpshooters. On the ocean side, a few photographers took pictures of my rotting deck and yelled for me to come out and talk to them about Jenny Parson. I ran around pulling shades and curtains.

  In the kitchen I drank my coffee and ate my breakfast huddled low over the table so they couldn’t get a good shot of me through the window above the sink. The onslaught brought back all the old fears I’d experienced with my mother as we were rushed through hotel kitchens to avoid the paparazzi that always waited for her. Instead of feeling special, I had felt trapped and vowed never to live like that. Yet here I was, not because I was one hell of an actress, but because I’d discovered a dead one. And the fame suckers wanted a piece of that.

  The limo driver whom Zaitlin had ordered to pick me up at eleven arrived thirty minutes early. When I looked out my peephole, he yelled above the pandemonium that he was here to get me. Letting him into the house, I slammed the door before they could take a picture.

  “I’m Gerald, ma’am.” He was a big guy with dyed brown hair.

  “Wait here.” Before he could answer, I left him standing.

  In my bedroom, I gulped more coffee and put on makeup with a shaky hand. Then I struggled into my LBD (little black dress), which I thought would make me look less “nutso” to Jake Jackson. Slipping into high black heels, I ran around trying to find my cell phone. It was in my purse. Grabbing a short gray leather jacket (a little edge always helps in Hollywood), I hurried into the hallway.

  The driver came to attention.

  “I’m ready, I think,” I said.

  “Do you want me to hold your jacket up in front of your face or anything?”

  “I’m not a suspect. Let’s just get to the car as fast as we can.”

  “It’s parked about fifteen houses down. I couldn’t get any closer, sorry.” He put his hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.” I slapped on my sunglasses.

  But you are never ready. Reporters with mikes rushed at me, mouths flapping, screaming questions. I could smell their rancid coffee breath and the sweat of the paparazzi, which was permanently distilled into the zip-up jackets they wore.

  “Diana! Did you see her die?” shouted one man.

  “How close were you and Jenny?” added another.

  “Will her death hurt the movie?” a third bellowed.

  “Did you kill her?” a woman called out.

  Lights flashed. Video cameras crushed in on me. I dipped my head, trying to turn away from the prodding lenses.

  “Look this way, Diana. Do you know who did it?”

  “What did her body look like?”

  Elbows and the sharp edges of equipment jabbed into my shoulders and back. I tripped over feet and someone stepped on my toes.

  “Did your mother know her?”

  “Smile, Diana!”

  A woman jerked at my hand and stuck a cell phone in my face. “Talk into this, Diana. Why were you carrying your mother’s ashes? Was it a ritual murder?”

  The driver grabbed my arm and pulled me through the mob. “The car is down this way. Run!”

  Cursing my choice of high heels, we ran for the limo as vehicles speeding on the highway came dangerously close. The asphalt was uneven and slippery with sand and gravel. The photographers and reporters chased after us.

  “Diana! Diana!”

  I stumbled as we reached the glistening black car. The driver caught me, grabbing my purse as it slipped from my shoulder. Quickly he opened the rear door and pushed me in. I fell flat on my face onto the black leather seat as he slammed the door shut.

  Breathless and unnerved, I righted myself, flipped my hair out of my eyes, and saw the back of a man sitting in the front passenger
seat. There was something familiar about him. The driver slipped in behind the wheel and threw my purse into the man’s lap. The locks on the doors slid down just as one of the paparazzi reached my side of the car, angrily striking at the darkened window with the palm of his hand. Tires screeched and I sank back into the seat as we sped off.

  The passenger turned his head. Leo Heath’s solemn dark brown eyes stared at me from his lean rugged face. I stiffened.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Security. Zaitlin wanted me to keep an eye on you. Put your seat belt on.” He faced forward.

  “Sorry about shoving you so hard,” the chauffeur offered as he rapidly cut in and out of the traffic. “Hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “I’m fine.” But I wasn’t. I was rattled by the run through the gauntlet of the fame suckers. And the presence of Heath wasn’t helping.

  “May I have my purse?” I asked.

  “When you’re finished, I’ll give it back to you.” Heath didn’t bother to turn around.

  “I beg your pardon? I’d like my purse. Now.”

  He put it on the floor.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

  Both men acted as if I hadn’t spoken. Jesus, what was going on? I looked more closely at the car. The burl wood on the side panels and the dashboard was rich and expensive, the leather soft as a baby’s ass. I peered out the front window at the shiny Mercedes Benz emblem on the hood. Zaitlin was careful with his money. He never would have sent such an expensive car to pick me up. This was no rented town car or SUV, it belonged to someone. And it wasn’t Zaitlin.

  I peered at the heavy chrome molding lining the doors and listened to the silence. There was no road noise—other cars, the wind. I could feel the heavy smooth grip of the tires on the pavement, but not hear them. This was the kind of car presidents used: soundproof, bulletproof, maybe even missileproof. Except that Heath with his bashed nose and the chauffeur with his dyed hair were no secret service.

  I reached over and pulled at the door lock. It didn’t move. Then I tried my window. I couldn’t open it