How to Party with a Killer Vampire (17 page)

I nodded, smiling.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We still call it that, but there aren’t any more crypts down there. Just some meeting rooms, our gift shop, and a Peet’s café.”

I had a feeling he was asked about the term often. As soon as the doors opened, I followed the smell of strong coffee to the tiny café. Angelica was sitting at one of the three tables, staring at her coffee, as if she might want to dive in.

I sat down next to her. She looked up. Without makeup, she was still pretty, but there were bags under her eyes, her skin was sallow, and her eyes were red.

“What do you want?” Angelica asked, getting directly to the point.

I took a deep breath. Where to begin? “I’m trying to find out what happened to Spidey the night before the party, and to the paparazzo after the party. It’s starting to look like Spidey didn’t die as a result of a fall. He was probably killed. And the police think Bodie, the paparazzo, was hit in the head with a shovel. They found Spidey’s blood on that same shovel. I think their deaths are connected. And I think you may know something about them.”

She gave a big sigh, as if the weight of the world were on her slim shoulders. “I’ve been over this with the police, Presley. I told them and I’ll tell you—I didn’t really know Spidey. He was just an extra on the set. We flirted a little; that’s it. Maybe he had a crush on me. It happens. And I’ve never met this Bodie guy, although I’ve seen him before. I have no idea why they were killed.”

Her words said one thing, her hands another. She was rubbing the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other as if trying to rub out a spot or soothe a pain. Clearly she was anxious about something. She’d quickly passed over the fact that she and Spidey had “flirted a little.” How much was a little? And what did it mean?

“Was Spidey—or Bodie Chase—stalking you?”

Her red-rimmed eyes flared again. I wondered if that was an acting technique.

“How did you know about my stalker?”

I had no particular loyalty to Jonas and said his name.

She closed her eyes. “Jonas.”

“So it’s possible one of them was the one sending you those notes and texts and calling your cell phone?”

“I don’t know. Honestly. Yes, someone—I don’t know who—has been sending me . . . stuff. But it comes with the territory. Guys get crushes on actresses all the time.”

“Do you have any of the messages on your phone?” I asked, hoping to see how threatening they really were.

She pulled out her cell phone, touched her text messages icon, scrolled through, then turned the cell phone toward me.

I took the phone and read the message:
No matter where you go or what you do, I’ll find you and have you.
The message had been sent by someone using the name “Eternal.”

I handed back the phone. “Have you tried to trace this?”

“Yes, I have a . . . friend who knows how to do that kind of thing.”

“Has he learned anything?”

“Not yet.” Angelica returned the phone to her purse.

“Jonas said you were worried.”

She pressed her lips together. The hand-rubbing picked up again. “Not really.”

Liar.

“You do know that sometimes these stalkers are dangerous, right?” I thought of a couple of actresses who’d been seriously accosted or even murdered by their stalkers.

“Yes, but I’m careful. And I have protection.”

I looked around. “I don’t see your . . . bodyguard.”

She laughed. “Nobody’s going to bother me in a church.”

I looked at her.

“Except you, maybe,” she added, then checked her watch as if she had an urgent meeting to attend. “Listen, Presley, I gotta go. I don’t have anything else to tell you.” She stood up, rearranged her scarf, and downed the last of her coffee before throwing it into a trash can.

“Angelica, this killer—whoever he or she is—may kill again. If there’s anything you can tell me that would help . . .”

“I don’t have anything! If anyone knows anything, it’s Lucas Cruz. He’s the one who hired the extras and then didn’t invite them to the party. That was what started all this. And then he had that argument with the paparazzo. So why don’t you ask him?”

I was surprised at the bitterness in her voice. Had something happened between Cruz and Angelica to cause her to imply that he had something to do with these deaths?

I tried one last question. “Angelica, I saw you in the cemetery with Jonas—”

She cut me off. “I know. I was there, remember?”

“No, I mean I saw you on the
Gossip Guy
segment last night on the news. You and Jonas were caught on tape, standing in the background. You both looked upset, as if you were having an argument.”

Her sallow face reddened. “So? There’s no crime in two actors passionately discussing their craft, is there? Now really, I have to go. Like I said, talk to Lucas if you have more questions. Just leave me out of it.”

She started to walk away when I called out, “There was someone in the shadows, watching you.”

She whirled around. “What are you talking about?”

“Brad and I noticed it last night while we were watching the show at my place. Someone was lurking behind a tree, as if spying on you. It couldn’t have been Lucas. He was front and center in the video. Any idea who it was?”

She paused, then shook her head, but I thought I saw the light go off in her eyes, shrouded by fear. I had the distinct feeling she did know.

My guess? Her husband.

 

I panicked the moment I reentered the cathedral. Mother was not in her pew. I searched the area and asked a few people sitting in nearby rows if they’d seen her, but no one seemed to have noticed the elegantly dressed woman in red with the netted hat. She’d vanished.

I ran out of the front entrance and scanned the area from the top step, searching up and down the hilly street. No sign of her. Someone came up behind me. I turned around to face the priest who’d ridden in the elevator with me.

“Are you all right, miss?” he asked. Apparently I didn’t look all right.

“My mother,” I said between rapid, shallow breaths. “I’ve lost her!”

In a calm voice he probably used to address the congregation, he said, “What does she look like?”

I described my mother to him. He nodded solemnly.

“I know the woman you speak of. She comes here from time to time. I saw her walking the outdoor labyrinth just moments ago.” He pointed to the right side of the church.

I let out a breath, shook the priest’s hand, and thanked him profusely. I’m sure he thought I was an overly dependent mama’s girl who needed to cut the cord. Following his point, I headed around the side to the courtyard where I found Mother walking the intricate path and mumbling to herself. As I approached, I heard her say, “ ‘Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer. . . .’ ”

I took a shortcut through the winding path and stepped over to her, gaining some irritated looks from the other walkers. Apparently one didn’t interrupt another’s path.

“Mom! You scared me! I didn’t know where you were.”

“Oh, darling, I was here. Where else would I be?”

On a cable car headed for Fisherman’s Wharf. In a cab traveling to the de Young Museum. In a bar flirting with a traveling salesman. God knew.

I took her hand. “We have to go now, Mom. I think we’ve had enough of an adventure for today. Let’s go get a bite to eat at Tommy’s Joynt. Then I’ll get you back home.”

“All right, dear, but I wasn’t finished with my maze walk. You know, walking this path is sort of like solving a puzzle, like those crimes you sometimes try to solve. Only I didn’t have a puzzle to solve, so I just recited ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe:

My mother was truly a rare and radiant maiden. She could recite poems she’d memorized as a child, something I could never do, yet not remember what she’d done yesterday. Alzheimer’s is funny like that.

But she was right about one thing. We were both, in our own ways, entangled in a labyrinth—Mom in her memories and I in a mystery.

After we finished our roast beef sandwiches at Tommy’s Joynt, I dropped Mother off, making sure she got into her building safely. She said something about not wanting to be late for her bocce ball class, and I admired the way she stayed busy and physically fit. The variety of activities at the center was the primary reason I’d chosen it. My mother was a social woman and would have been bored silly if she’d come to live with me. At the center she was safe, happy, and still able to join me for “adventures,” much like the ones she’d taken me on when I was a kid. Plus, she got to flirt with the men there.

It was nearly two p.m. by the time I got in my car. Before pulling into the street—and to avoid getting a ticket for using my cell phone while driving—I called Duncan’s number. As much as I hated those earpieces that everyone seemed to be wearing instead of earrings, I knew I’d have to get one someday.

“S’up, Presley?” Duncan answered. It still startled me when someone seemed to be clairvoyant and knew I was on the line. Caller ID had its advantages and disadvantages. You couldn’t take anyone by surprise anymore.

“Hi, Duncan. How’re you doing?”

“Okay. Any news?” He sounded tired.

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. I wondered if you could tell me where your friend Trace lives. I’d like to ask him a few questions about Spidey and his relationship with Angelica.”

“He’s not going to know anything, Presley. The police have already talked to him. He’d have said something to me if he knew what happened to Spidey. Besides, there was no ‘relationship.’ Maybe he liked her, but that’s as far as it went.”

“I know, but I’d still like to talk to him. Is that a problem?” I was sensing hesitancy on Duncan’s end.

A pause, then he said, “No. Just don’t bug him, okay? He’s been through enough. We all have.”

“I understand.”

“He’s at the Towers. You want his number?”

“No, I thought I’d drop by. He’s staying at a hotel?”

“It’s a dorm at San Francisco State. He’s on the fourteenth floor—science and tech floor.”

Of course. I should have recognized the name. “I didn’t realize he was in college. You guys only mentioned your high school connection.”

“Yeah, well, college wasn’t for me or Spidey, but Trace wants to become an engineer or something. He’s pretty smart. If he’s not doing parkour after class, he’s usually there at the dorm. Room 1404.”

I took down the information, hung up the phone, pulled into traffic, and headed for the university, located near the upscale St. Francis Wood neighborhood on Nineteenth Avenue. A rush of classroom memories kept me occupied along the way, and I realized how much I missed teaching abnormal psychology at the university. For nearly eight years I’d taught three sections of the course, all filled with students eager to learn about the atypical development of a person. They were enthralled by the examples of bizarre behavior I shared. One of their favorites—the psychopathology of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski—kept them asking questions I couldn’t always answer, such as how did Ted become a lonely, antisocial murderer while David, his brother, led a successful life as a married attorney who had the courage to turn in his own brother. And each time we discussed a disorder—anxiety, mood, personality disorders—my students were certain they had a form of it. Gotta love ’em.

Except for Lindsay Nicholson, whom I discovered was sleeping with my “boyfriend” at the time. Rob Michaels was a professor in the English department, and we’d been dating for several months when I found out he was cheating on me. She probably fell for him after he read her some of those romantic poems. It had certainly worked on me.

Not anymore.

I pulled up to the Tower lot and found visitor parking, realizing I also missed campus life. In my spare time I’d taken classes in everything from sailing in nearby Lake Merced to film studies. The university has one of the top film schools, with graduates such as Annette Bening, Dana Carvey, and Danny Glover. I’d eventually planned to get my doctorate in clinical psychology, after I got some of the fun classes out of the way, but due to the university downsizing its staff, that was now on hold.

I tried the front door of the building—locked, of course. Opening my purse, I got out my old faculty card and tried to run it through the electronic lock. Nothing. Trying not to act like a loiterer, I lingered at the door until a student finally came out, then grabbed it and slipped inside.