Dead By Midnight (12 page)

Wainwright nodded. “Good. Good. Now that we have that settled, may I speak to Ms. Hammonds?”

“I’ll get her,” Maleah said, and then turned toward the stairs.

She had barely reached the landing when Lorie came out of her room and met her. “I kept my door open and overheard what y’all were saying. So, the FBI is involved now, huh?”

“It seems so, which is probably a good thing. A very good thing. You’ll have not only the Powell Agency and all its resources working to find the killer, you’ll also have the power and resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at work on your behalf.”

“And the local sheriff,” Lorie reminded her.

“You’re right. We should never underestimate the importance of local law enforcement.”

He adored Lorie Hammonds. She was beautiful and kind and sweet and sexy as hell. He had worshipped her from afar for a couple of years, but she didn’t really see him as anything other than an acquaintance, a nice hometown guy who had always treated her like a lady. Everybody here in Dunmore knew she was still hung up on Mike Birkett and the damn fool wouldn’t give her the time of day. At least not until recently. Now the sheriff was sniffing around Lorie, acting all protective and concerned. Too little too late as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t fair that Mike got to step into the role of Lorie’s knight in shining armor. Given half a chance, he would take on the role himself. He dreamed of the moment Lorie would look at him and see that he was the man she’d always needed, the man who would do anything for her.

One of these days, he would work up the courage to ask her for a date. He’d walk into Treasures and go right up to her and say, “How’d you like to go out Friday night for dinner and a movie?”

And she’d say, “Whatever took you so long to ask me out? I’d love to go.”

That would be the first of many dates, evenings that would end up back at her house, in her bed, the two of them screwing like crazy all night long.

Just the thought of touching Lorie gave him a hard-on.

Hidden in the shadows outside Jack and Cathy Perdue’s home, he wondered what all the activity going on inside the house was about and how soon he could find out any details. Whatever concerned Lorie, concerned him, because whether she knew it or not she belonged to him

Later that evening, Mike pulled his truck into the parking lot adjacent to the sheriff’s office where Special Agent Wainwright had left his car. As soon as he killed the engine, Mike reached to open the driver’s side door, but Wainwright’s comment stopped him cold.

“Ms. Hammonds is even more beautiful now than when she made
Midnight Masquerade
.”

Mike swallowed hard. “You’ve seen the film?”

“Yeah, strictly in the line of duty, of course.” Wainwright chuckled.

Do not lose your cool. This man doesn’t know you were once engaged to Lorie. As far as he’s concerned, this is just guy talk, nothing more and nothing less.

“Yeah, sure.” For the life of him, Mike could not fake a smile.

“It’s a good thing the Powell Agency has assigned a woman to guard Ms. Hammonds. I can see where a guy could easily get personally involved when the client is a woman like Lorie.”

“You’re assuming a great deal about her simply because she made one porno movie.”

Wainwright narrowed his gaze and studied Mike. “The lady’s past had nothing to do with my comment. The fact that she’s gorgeous and vulnerable and a guy could drown in her big brown eyes is what I was talking about. Just interviewing her for half an hour gave me a pretty good idea what kind of person she is.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“You wouldn’t have a personal interest in the lady, would you?”

Did he? Hell yes!

“My only interest in Lorie Hammonds is in my capacity as the sheriff of this county. She’s one of the citizens that I’m sworn to protect.”

Wainwright smiled. “Then the fact that you two were once engaged doesn’t factor into your feelings about her?”

Wham! A two-by-four right between the eyes. That’s how Wainwright’s question affected Mike. Rendered momentarily speechless, he stared at the FBI agent.

“When I’m assigned to a case, I do my research, Sheriff Birkett.”

“Then you know that there has been nothing between Lorie and me since she came back to Dunmore more than nine years ago.”

“Nothing? No feelings whatsoever, huh? I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe it.”

“It must have been difficult for you when she came back to Dunmore, knowing every man in town had not only seen her naked in
Playboy
, but had watched her screw a couple of guys on film.”

It took every ounce of Mike’s self-control not to punch Wainwright in the mouth. With his jaw clenched and his hands balled into tight fists, he glared at the man.

Wainwright looked Mike right in the eye. Neither of them blinked. Neither flinched. Finally, Wainwright asked, “Did you hate her? Do you still hate her?”

A low, guttural growl rose from Mike’s chest and crawled up his throat. Only his clenched teeth diluted the sound from a roar to a rumble. “What are you really asking?”

“Do you hate Lorie Hammonds enough to want to see her dead?”

“You son of a bitch! Are you implying that I’d—?”

“It’s a legitimate question,” Wainwright told him. “And to answer your question—no, I do not think that you’re in any way involved with the murders. But someone could easily use the murders as a smokescreen to hide behind if they wanted Lorie out of the way.”

“You’re talking about a copycat murder? Why would you think I or anyone else in Dunmore could hate Lorie enough to want to see her dead?”

“I like to get the lay of the land where all the players are concerned, and you were the only one on my possible suspects list who had reason to truly hate Lorie Hammonds. Let’s just say that I can mark that particular scenario off my list. It’s obvious that whether you know it or not, you still have some strong feelings for the lady.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I? Then why did you turn ten shades of green when I mentioned how it must have felt knowing so many other men had seen your former fiancée in all her naked glory?”

He was dying. His doctor had delivered his death sentence shortly after Thanksgiving this past year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. He’d had four long months to learn to accept the reality of his situation. Pancreatic cancer. Stage four. Original prognosis: a few months, a year at most. He knew he was already living on borrowed time.

Travis Dillard smoothed his fingertips over the cold, glossy surface of his mahogany desk, a twenty-five-thousand-dollar antique that his decorator had chosen for his home office ten years ago. He had surrounded himself with only the best money could buy because he could afford it. He had lived in a house worth thirty million, owned a dozen high-dollar automobiles, smoked Cuban cigars, drank Krug Grande Cuvée champagne, and wore Moreschi shoes and Astor & Black hand-tailored suits.

But that had been then. This was now. Divorce in California was expensive and although he had managed to hide some of his assets with wives three and four, wife number five had outsmarted him by stashing away millions neither he nor his lawyer had ever been able to find.

He turned and gazed out the vast expanse of windows that showcased a splendid view of the Pacific Ocean. Beauty unparalleled in nature—except for the exquisite human form, both male and female in their prime.

Travis sighed heavily. Ah, for the good old days.

Be grateful for what you have, you old son of a bitch.

It wasn’t as if he lived in poverty. He still owned the beach house he had inherited from his second wife, Valerie. Dear Valerie, to whom he owed so much. She had been the one who had taught him how to enjoy the finer things in life. Although he had never loved her—had he truly loved any of his wives?—he would forever be grateful to her for leaving him her millions.

And he still owned the rights to forty of his films, adult movies that had been rereleased recently on DVD. The income off those movies didn’t afford him the luxury lifestyle to which he had been accustomed, but it did pay the bills and allowed him and his latest wife to maintain the façade of wealth. Dawn—his sixth wife—was young and gorgeous and sported the best body cosmetic surgery could give her. She wasn’t overly bright, but after his fifth wife—the one who had taken him to the cleaners—Travis was perfectly content being married to a gorgeous, airheaded bimbo.

By his standards, he had lived a good life. Hell, he’d lived a great life. How many men could say they had screwed hundreds of lovely ladies? From his first fuck at the age of fourteen, he’d had his pick of sweet pussy. Not that he was all that handsome himself, just an average-looking Joe. But he had a big cock and a big ego and women seemed to love both of his best assets.

If he had his life to live over again, would he do anything different? Hell, no! He had lived every moment of his life to the fullest and had no regrets.

Well, maybe one regret. The doctors claimed that his two-packs-a-day smoking habit had probably caused the cancer that was now killing him.

But why him? Damned if he knew. Bible-thumpers would say he was getting his just punishment. Screw ’em all, every last sanctimonious hypocrite out there. There wasn’t a heterosexual man alive who didn’t enjoy the pleasures of looking at, touching, and using a woman’s body. The films he’d made catered to the normal human desires that existed in everyone.

“Mr. Dillard?” Louie Tong cleared his throat. “Your guests are due to arrive shortly. Do you wish for me to—?”

“Is it that late already?” Travis turned and faced his housekeeper of twenty years, a man he called friend, possibly the only real friend he had. “Did you compile all the information I asked for?”

“All the information is in the red binder there on your desk,” Louie said. “I placed it there earlier today.”

Yes, of course, he had. Travis remembered now. Odd how easily he forgot things these days. “Thank you. It had slipped my mind.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“No, I…uh…I’m just wondering about these murders. Someone has killed Hilary and Dean and Charlie. Hilary and Dean were some of the best in the business. I loved them both, you know.” He chuckled, remembering how often he had “loved” Hilary. God, she’d been a wild woman in bed. “And Charlie was a real card. The guy had a wonderful sense of humor. I loved him, too.”

“Yes, sir, it’s a shame what happened to them.”

“Damn shame. They were all far too young to die.” Travis slammed his fist down on the antique desk. “Damn it, I’m too young to die! People live to be a hundred these days. I should have had at least another twenty years.”

Louie stared at him, a look of concern and sympathy in his black eyes.

Travis waved his hand in the air and grunted. “When those Powell agents arrive, show them into the living room. I’ll be in there drinking some of my Macallan scotch and smoking one of my Havanas. I’m going to enjoy every day I’ve got left, drinking and smoking and screwing to the end.”

Travis Dillard had agreed to meet with them at four-thirty at his beach house on the Pacific Coast Highway. The Powell Agency office in Knoxville had quickly pulled together more info on Dillard, including the particulars of the property he owned. It seemed that he had been forced to sell his Bel Air mansion, which he had acquired through marriage to an heiress a good twenty years ago. The woman had been much older than Dillard and had died of an apparent heart attack after two years of marriage to the up-and-coming porno filmmaker.

“Wife number two financed Dillard’s first ten movies,” Derek read from his laptop screen. “But after her death, wives three through five pretty much bankrupted the guy, especially wife number five. All he owns now is the place in Malibu, a couple of antique cars, and the rights to more than forty of his films.”

Maleah turned their rental car off onto the drive leading from the highway to Dillard’s house. “How old is he?”

“Hmm…” Derek scanned the file that the agency had sent this morning. “Sixty-six. Why?”

“And his present wife is how old?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Figures. Is she a porno star?”

“She was, but once she married the boss, she became a silent partner in his business and gave up acting.”

Maleah parked the rental in front of a modern architectural creation of white stucco—two levels, walls of floor-to-ceiling windows, and a breathtaking view of the Pacific. She let out a long, low whistle. “What’s this place worth?”

“The estimated worth is $11,950,000, which makes it one of the less pricey pieces of real estate along this stretch of Malibu.”

“That means he’s far from broke, at least not until the new wife divorces him and gets her half.”

“Won’t happen. She signed a prenup. Unless she stays married to Dillard until he dies, she gets one million in cash and that’s it. Guess the guy finally wised up.”

Maleah grunted. As far as she was concerned Travis Dillard was a scumbag, the lowest of the low, who catered to the baser elements of human nature and preyed on stupid young girls with stars in their eyes.

She opened the car door and got out, meeting Derek under the vine-covered overhang that protected the front entrance.

“Pull in your claws and play nice,” Derek told her. “If Dillard senses your hostility, he’ll clam up immediately and refuse to cooperate. We want him friendly and talkative. Whatever you do, do not accuse him of anything. Got it?”

“Don’t talk to me as if I’m some green recruit who doesn’t know—”

The front door swung open, and standing just over the threshold, a small Asian man of indeterminate age stared at them.

“We’re here to see Travis Dillard,” Maleah said.

“We have an appointment,” Derek added. “We’re with the Powell Agency. I’m Derek Lawrence and the lady is Maleah Perdue.”

“Come this way, please. Mr. Dillard is expecting you.” Without a backward glance, the man walked off, leaving Maleah and Derek to follow him.

A rectangular tiger-print rug covered the foyer’s ceramic porcelain tile floor and an elaborately decorated Chinese cabinet, painted black and red, stood against the left wall. They entered the huge living room, at least 30' x 30', two of the four walls filled with windows that overlooked the Pacific. Maleah barely stifled a startled gasp when she saw the expansive view of beach and ocean. But she managed to focus on the bone-thin, bald man who rose from one of the two white sofas flanking the stucco fireplace.

This old, haggard, bald man was Travis Dillard? He looked much older than sixty-six, more like eighty-six. And although he still resembled the photo they had of him, she would have pegged him for Dillard’s father instead of the man himself. But then cancer could do that to a person, ravage their body and render them gaunt and pale.

“Ms. Perdue and Mr. Lawrence to see you, sir,” the man who had met them at the front door announced.

“Thank you, Louie.” Travis smiled, flicked the ashes from his cigar, and placed it, still smoking, in an ashtray on the glass and steel coffee table. “Please, you two come in. Come in and take a seat.”

Maleah noticed the half-empty glass of liquor—her guess would be whiskey—on a tile coaster beside the ashtray. When a guy was dying, she supposed it didn’t matter how much he drank and smoked.

She and Derek sat on the white sofa across from the identical one on which Dillard sat.

“You’re from some private detective agency, right?” Dillard asked.

“The Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency,” Maleah replied.

“Hmm…that’s the one headed up by that famous guy—what’s-his-name Powell, the billionaire.”

“That’s correct. Griffin Powell,” Derek said. “And the agency has been hired by the families of Hilary Finch Chambless and Dean Wilson to do a private investigation into Mrs. Chambless’s and Mr. Wilson’s deaths.”

“Damn shame about Hilary and Dean. And Charlie, too. I was just saying that to Louie”—he tossed up his hand and pointed at his servant still standing at attention halfway across the room—“earlier today. Good people, all three of them.”

Maleah supposed that in Travis Dillard’s world the three victims had been good people. But not in the real world, the one inhabited by the vast majority.

“Oh, yeah, either of you care for something to drink? Louie can make tea or coffee or mix up a cocktail or—”

“Nothing, thank you,” Maleah said, her voice a bit sterner than she had intended.

Dillard dismissed his servant with a quick glance before he focused on Maleah, studying her for a couple of seconds. “You got the looks, honey. How old are you? Twenty-eight? Thirty? They prefer ’em younger and younger these days, but there’s a market for older chicks like you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Maleah glared at the old man. Had he actually told her that she had what it took to be a porno star? When she heard an odd sound coming from Derek’s direction, she snapped her head around and glared at him. Noting that he was on the verge of laughing out loud, she gritted her teeth to keep from losing her temper.

“Don’t take offense, honey,” Dillard said. “I just paid you a compliment.” He glanced at Derek. “What is it with smart, professional women that they can’t take a compliment from a man when they hear one?”

I can take a compliment when I actually hear one.
The comment was on the tip of Maleah’s tongue, but she managed, with great difficulty, to refrain from saying it aloud.

Derek shrugged. Damn the man! He winked at her, then grinned at Dillard before asking, “Do you have any idea who killed three of your former stars?”

“Don’t have the foggiest.” He shook his head.

“How long has it been since you last saw each of them?” Maleah asked.

“Years.”

“So you’ve had no communication with any of them recently.”

“Nope.”

“Do you keep in touch with any of the people—actors and others—who were associated with
Midnight Masquerade
?” Derek asked.

Dillard reached out and picked up a red binder from the sofa cushion beside him. After flipping through several pages, he paused, pulled a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket, and put them on. He skimmed the information and then glanced from Derek to Maleah.

“I got Louie to compile some info for me on all the people involved in the making of that particular movie. It was a good ten years ago. I’ve made quite a few movies since then, a few well-received independent artsy productions, with real actors.” He tapped the folder with his skeletal index finger. “I read over the names of everybody who had anything to do with
Midnight Masquerade
and I have to admit that there are a few I don’t even remember. Not my stars, mind you, but some of the others.” He grimaced as if hating the fact that his memory failed him. “To answer your question, yes, sure, I’ve kept in touch with a few of the people. Not many. Some are actually still in the business.”

“Really,” Maleah said. “Who’s still in the business? And who are you still in touch with?”

“Well, Laura Lou Roberts, one of the two writers who worked on
Masquerade
, is still writing for a few other producers even though she’s battling emphysema. She’s an A-number-one bitch, but she writes the kind of stuff I want. And she’s getting a little long in the tooth at nearly sixty, but it’s not like she’s showing her tits and ass on film.”

Dillard laughed, the sound grating on Maleah’s nerves.
This guy really is a sleaze.

“Anyone else?” Maleah tried not to show her disgust.

“One of the cameramen, Jeff Misner, is a director now. He directed my last film,
Down and Dirty
, a few years back. He’s married to the former Puff Raven, aka Jean Goins. She was in
Midnight
, too. She’s doing some hot videos for the Internet and getting filthy rich. And I used to hear from Sonny Shag Deguzman, up until last year. He was over in Europe somewhere and I suppose he’s still there. As far as I know, the other cameraman on that movie, Kyle Richey, is in Mexico. The first few years he was down there, he sent me some eager young things dying to be in the movies.” Dillard lowered his voice to a whisper. “Young girls, if you know what I mean.”

Yes, Maleah knew exactly what he meant. Underage girls, some as young as eleven or twelve, who were sexually exploited and those depraved acts were filmed by ruthless, criminal scumbags like Dillard.