Gold Medal Murder (7 page)

Since then, she'd put a lot of her time—and her PR connections—into smearing his name. A little more searching brought up a series of tell-all interviews about him on a celebrity blog called
Stalker
. It looked like Scott wasn't the only one she was gossiping about. In some of the interviews, she'd branched out to dishing the dirt on other big athletes she'd met during her time with him. Including Lexi, who she called both “uptight” and “stupid.” It seemed her main project now was shopping around an unauthorized biography of Scott, entitled
Waterlogged: My Life with the Selfish Teenager Who Became America's Darling.
She'd also released some “secret footage” of Scott to the media. Most of it was
America's Funniest Home Videos
type of stuff: him messing up, tripping into the pool, hitting his head while swimming, etc. But
at least one of the tapes was of him having a total meltdown because his training area was a mess. It definitely made him look bad—and crazy. Like the tape that was played at the reception earlier. And given her PR and Internet savvy, it wouldn't be surprising if she knew her way around tech stuff.

Finally, my phone beeped to let me know that we were near Elisa's house, in a neighborhood known as Silver Lake. It was one of the supertrendy, hip areas of the city. There were people in tight jeans and big sunglasses everywhere, with hair that reminded me of the biker gang we'd faced last week. I didn't find a lake anywhere, but I did see quite a few pools. I could get used to this city, I decided. I hopped out and headed to the address ATAC had given me, taking notes on Elisa the whole way.

Suspect Profile

Name:
Elisa von Meter

Hometown:
Los Angeles, California

Occupation:
Professional gossip

Physical description:
Five-six; long, curly red hair; heart-shaped
face; athletic. In a city of models, she holds her own
on the pretty scale.

Suspected of:
Sending death threats to Scott Trevor. Filming
him in his sleep. Sabotaging his public appearances.
And maybe, now, going after Lexi, too.

Motive:
Everyone wants to see the golden boy fail—and then read
about it after. Scott losing at the Olympics could be the best
possible ending for her new book.

Suspicious behavior:
She's already shown that she'd been filming
Scott in secret all along. She's threatened him in public before.
Maybe now she's upping the ante.

I let out a low whistle. She sounded like a real piece of work. This was going to be a tough interview. I mentally psyched myself up as I walked along the path to her little corner bungalow. It was classic California style: two small palm trees out front, red tile roof, large garden in the back.

I barely had a chance to knock on the door before it was flung open—but only about two inches. One fierce green eye peaked out through below the safety chain.

“What? I don't want any.”

The door started to close.

“Ms. von Meter?” I yelled.

The door paused. Then I heard a quick intake of breath. The door shut the rest of the way.

“Darn,” I said. This was going to be tough.

Then, to my surprise, the door opened the rest of the way. Behind it stood Lexi.

Or, no, not Lexi—just a woman who looked a lot like her. Same hair, same build, same heart-shaped face. But this woman's green eyes were in constant, angry motion,
as though she were scanning the horizon for an attack.

“You,” she said. “You're his new personal assistant. Joe…”

She pulled a small spiral-bound notebook from her back pocket and flipped to a page, seemingly at random. “Hardy. Joe Hardy. I've been wanting to talk to you.”

She gave me a smile that was meant, I thought, to be friendly. Instead, it was the kind of smile a wolf gave a rabbit.

“Come in.”

She put her hand on my arm and virtually yanked me inside. Maybe this wasn't going to be as hard as I thought.

She half-guided, half-threw me down on a couch in her living room. Before I could get a word in edgewise, Elisa had pulled a tape recorder out of another of her pockets.

“It's August Fourth, 2010. The time is four p.m. This is Elisa von Meter interviewing Joe Hardy, personal assistant to one Scott Trevor. Location of interview is my living room.”

Seems like Elisa wanted to interview me as much as I wanted to interview her. Maybe I could use this to my advantage.

“So, Mr. Hardy, what's it like working for the notoriously OCD Scott Trevor? Unpleasant? Horrible? Or just merely painful?

She waited expectantly, her digital recorder pointing directly at my face. Thank God she had a digital recorder, I thought, as I slipped my hand into my pocket and punched a quick activation code into my special ATAC-issued phone. This trick wouldn't work on an old-school tape recorder, but the activation code I had just keyed in would scramble any file a digital recorder tried to create. We were officially “off the record.” But there was no point in telling Elisa that—not yet, anyway. It was time to bargain.

“I won't talk on tape,” I said.

“Joe—can I call you Joe? Let's be reasonable. You came here because you want something from me. I want something from you. I see no reason why we can't help each other out. I can even give you a pseudonym for the book.”

I pretended to think about it. “Promise you won't use my real name?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” I said. “Scott's pretty tough to work for. He's constantly asking me to clean and move things around. Everything has to be just perfect or he goes totally crazy on me.”

Elisa cackled and did a little dance in her seat. She was eating this up.

“That's actually kind of why I came to see you.”

“Tell me more,” she said.

“Well, it's just—how did you deal with it? I mean, most of the time, it's okay, but recently, with all the threats he's been getting, he's just gotten more and more crazy.” I wanted her to tip her hand. If I could get her talking about the threats, maybe she'd let something slip. At least I'd be able to tell if she knew something, even if I couldn't get her to reveal it.

“There have been more threats?” she said. She sounded upset.

I nodded.

“This is not good, Joe. Scott has got to be in peak condition. This is the most important week of his life. You've got to help him get through this.” She was on her feet now, pacing. “Scott has never been able to deal with stress well. Really drives him crazy—he'll stop sleeping. Watch out for that. Make sure he sleeps. Got it? Make sure.”

This was not the reaction I expected. It was almost like she was…
helping
me.

“But don't you want Scott to lose?”

She let out a single bark of a laugh.

“What, are you kidding me? He is my cash cow. If he wins at the Olympics, if he breaks the record for most gold medals by a single athlete, my book is golden. I'm set. Everyone wants to hear the juicy gossip behind the scenes of the winner. But no one buys books about losers.”

She had a point. She might be mean and amoral, but when it came to this, her best interest was Scott's best interest.

“But what about all that secret footage of him you released? Wasn't that going to throw him off his game too?”

“That? That was months ago. I was angry then. Besides, that was right when he dumped me for that little tramp he's with now.”

Dumped her?
That was something Scott hadn't mentioned. He'd been shifty about exactly why he'd let Elisa go, but this might explain a few things.

“Now, I'm thinking clearly. Besides, that was just to show him I was serious. And it wasn't even my idea in the first pla—”

She seemed to catch herself.
Darn,
I thought,
just as things were about to get interesting
. She laughed again, a more human sound this time.

“Oops. Don't need to have that on tape.”

She hit the back button, probably intending to tape over the last few seconds of the conversation. But when she hit play to find her place, all that came out was static. I had a feeling my interview was about to be over.

“What the heck?” she said. Even though I wished I could get more information out of her, I couldn't keep a smile from playing across my lips. Elisa noticed.

“You did this, didn't you? You're jamming my recorder. You smarmy little brat.”

For all that she was much shorter than me, Elisa towered above me on the couch, five-feet-six-inches of pure fury. I couldn't help but laugh.

“Sorry about that, Elisa. But you've been real helpful.” I stood up and started to walk to the door.

“Get out of my house!” she screamed at my back.

“You're the best,” I yelled over my shoulder. “Let's do lunch! Have your people call my people!” I swung the door shut behind me. A second later, something exploded against the back of it. Judging from the sound of the impact, it was her digital recorder.

Unless she was the world's best actress, Elisa didn't seem to be behind the death threats. But she did know how to use recorders and other technical equipment, which still kept her in the running in my mind. Maybe she was working with someone else—after all, she'd mentioned the secret footage not being her idea. I needed to get more information from her, but after that episode, there was no way she was going to talk to me again.

Maybe Nancy could talk to her? Woman to woman? I didn't know quite how that sort of thing worked—I imagined there were sleepovers and hair-braiding involved. But if it worked, I was ready to ask Nancy to try it.

My phone buzzed. Speaking of Nancy, it was a text message from her:

“@ hospital w/ Lexi.”

A sick feeling welled up in my stomach, as though I'd just been punched. I started to jog along the road. I just hoped this neighborhood had taxis…

“Well, that was quite the surprise!”

Bess still couldn't get over running into Joe and Frank here in LA. It was all she could talk about since we'd dropped them off.

“I mean, it's like you can't leave River Heights without running into them. They are, like, everywhere. Not that I'm complaining. They're both so cute! And so funny. And—”

“And so on a case, remember? Just like we are.”

“Yeah. The case of the supercute brothers!”

I had to laugh at that. She was right, the Hardys were a great pair. And it was exciting to be working on a case with them again. I tried not to think about how the last time we all hung out, we also all almost died. In fact,
pretty much every time I saw Frank and Joe, I ended up dangling from something or with a gun pointed at my head. They sure knew how to party.

After I'd found Joe by the sound equipment, I'd told Lexi that we were going to go “catch up with some old friends.” I didn't want to mention ATAC to her. They tried to keep that a secret. Besides, she'd been too busy calming down Scott to pay much attention to me. I told her we'd meet up with her in a few hours. I figured we still had some time to talk to some of the athletes before we went looking for her.

By the time we got back to the Olympic Arena, almost all of the journalists were gone. The main competition area was closed, and the athletes were all training in the various sub-complexes. We pinned on the passes that Lexi had given us—little Olympic-torch-shaped badges. They worked like magic. There was nowhere, it seemed, where we weren't allowed to go.

We passed a group of American athletes, easily picked out by their red, white, and blue tracksuits, and Bess tried to make conversation.

“Hi there!” she said, her smile beaming.

There were a few nods, but most of the athletes just kept talking to one another.

“My wind sprints are totally lagging today. My coach is going to kill me.”

“I hear you. That guy from Ghana was right behind
me on the one hundred meter. I've got to cut one-tenth off my time before the games start.”

I noticed one woman standing slightly off by herself, and tried to talk to her.

“So, what do you play?”

“Play?” She looked at me as though I'd asked her to massage my feet.

“Yeah, like, what sport do you play?”

“This is the Olympics. We're the top athletes
in the world
. We don't ‘play' at anything. We compete. I run relays.”

“Oh, well. That's nice,” I mumbled. The woman walked away from me with a snort. I didn't even get her name. I spotted Bess standing by herself a few feet away and hurried over to join her, my cheeks burning.

“This might be harder than I thought,” Bess said.

“Yeah. I think I just insulted someone.”

“That's better than I've done—no one will even talk to me!”

“Even if they did, how do you work ‘are you being threatened?' into a casual conversation?”

“We need some sort of gimmick.”

We stood there thinking for a few minutes. I stared out across the auditorium. A few hundred feet away, a journalist was interviewing the same woman I had just spoken to. She was talking and laughing. How did they do it?

Then it came to me.

“We'll tell them we're journalists! And we're doing a report on jealousy among star athletes. That way, we've got a reason to talk to them.”

“Great idea!” Bess pulled a small notebook out of her pocket. “This way, I can even take notes without looking suspicious.”

With our new plan, we began to work the room. A few of the athletes still wouldn't talk to us, but many of them seemed eager to talk to the press. It made sense. The more publicity they got, the more likely they were to get sponsorship deals, and that's where the real money was. They might have competed for the love of the sport, but they had to make money somehow.