Looks to Die For (9 page)

“Bullshit,” Ashley said.

I pulled up near the front of the school, and Ashley jumped out of the car. “This whole family is full of bullshit.”

She disappeared into a crowd of kids hanging out in front of the school and I pulled away slowly. Maybe Ashley was angry, but she was also right. The thought of going into the grocery store and encountering anyone who knew me made my stomach turn. How the heck did you march up to the deli counter and order a half pound of smoked turkey when the guy at the slicing machine knew about your husband, the murder suspect? Was I supposed to buy meat pies and start making jokes about
Sweeney Todd
?

I had to figure it out. I made a U-turn and steered the Lexus toward my favorite gourmet-food store in Pacific Palisades. I parked around back near a row of shops just as two women I knew bounced out of the exercise studio and disappeared into Bon Delice for a post-Pilates chai tea. I ground my teeth, knowing that the minute I followed, I’d be the morning’s entertainment. I could just picture the pitying looks, patronizing comments, and supercilious offers of help.
Did you see poor Lacy? So brave of her to be buying arugula, with all she’s been through.

Who needed Bon Delice anyway? I wasn’t on the prowl for crème fraîche and brioche today. For skim milk and Arnold’s 100 percent whole wheat bread, I could zip over to the anonymous supermarket chain three miles down the road. Save face and save money at the same time. Marching through the front door at Gelsons, I grabbed a shopping cart and began checking out the Gala apples and D’anjou pears. But it didn’t take long for two women across the aisle to start checking me out. I caught one of them pointing in my direction, and then they both began whispering. Embarrassed, I quickly moved away. Over by the artichokes, I got an open stare from a voluptuous woman in a green running bra, yellow python pants, and white stilettos (talk about a scandal), and when I went to pick out a fresh, runny Brie, I caught the clerk behind the cheese counter stealing furtive glances at me. I tried to glare at her, but my oversized Christian Dior sunglasses got in the way. Heart sinking, I finished my shopping as quickly as I could and rushed over to the express checkout, getting in line behind a woman in a Juicy Couture pink running suit. She turned slightly, and I realized it was my neighbor Jane Snowdon. Jimmy and her son Jared were in the same kindergarten class, and Jane had been in my Tuesday morning yoga group for years.

“Lacy?”

I nodded miserably, barely looking up. I should have called Jane after she brought Jimmy home that first day. But “should have” was never helpful. I probably should have done something about global warming and nuclear proliferation, too. Then there was that box of Godiva chocolates I shouldn’t have eaten.

“I’m glad to see you,” Jane said, unloading her groceries onto the belt.

“You, too,” I mumbled.

“I didn’t recognize you at first,” Jane said, good-naturedly gesturing toward my reflecting sunglasses and pulled-down hat, and the Hermès scarf I’d wound halfway up my face. “When I spotted you over by the papaya, I thought you were a star recovering from plastic surgery.”

“I’m trying to recover from something a lot worse,” I said.

“Not nearly as interesting to most of us as a good eye tuck,” Jane said with a laugh. “Didn’t you notice everyone staring? I heard two women trying to get up the courage to ask you for the name of your doctor.”

I smiled, and then started to chuckle. And then despite myself, I laughed out loud. The women who’d been scrutinizing me didn’t know about Dan — they just assumed I was concealing a swollen face and surgery scars. A little less disguise would have been better camouflage.

“Today’s my first time out of the house in a week,” I admitted, feeling my defenses dropping a bit.

“I can imagine how hard it is,” Jane said sympathetically. “After I saw the news trucks, I turned on the TV and figured out what had happened. I’m so sorry, Lacy. I didn’t know what to do. I almost sent a Mrs. Beasley’s basket.”

“Thanks.” I was genuinely moved but slightly baffled. Somehow Mrs. Beasley’s mail-order food treats had become the number-one favorite gift in town. Every Christmas, Dan got half a dozen wicker sleighs filled with brownie bars, mini-muffins, and tea cakes, which we admired for a while and then threw away. Maybe that explained it. The goodies looked lovely and tasted terrible — making them the perfect present in Hollywood, the eating-disorder capital of the world.

“We’re trying to get back to normal,” I told Jane. “That’s why I’m here — in addition to needing milk.”

“Any idea what happens next?” Jane asked, moving down a few steps to pack her vegetables, soy cheese, and yogurt into plastic bags. (Not biodegradable, but plastic takes up less room in landfills than brown paper. Very confusing these days to be ecologically correct.) The cashier, preoccupied with plying an emery board around a flawless fingernail, completely ignored us.

“We find out what really happened to the girl and solve the case,” I said flippantly. “Because the police have it all wrong.”

“You’ll solve it,” Jane said earnestly.

“Maybe not me personally,” I amended.

“Why not?” Jane paused in her packing and turned to look at me. “You always know when things aren’t what they seem. You have an amazing eye. Do you remember when you took me to the Santa Monica flea market?”

“Of course I remember,” I said, pleased. Mixed in with some wicker and bamboo outdoor furniture, I’d spotted a pair of nineteenth-century Chinese marble garden stools. I’d convinced Jane that if she arranged them next to the brocade sofa in her living room, she’d have a fabulously original end table.

“You spot an outside seat and see an inside table,” Jane continued. “You’re probably the one who can spot a real killer, too.”

I laughed because she had to be kidding. Knowing how to track down a creative coffee table didn’t qualify me to chase a clever killer. And I wasn’t prepared to find a murderer just because I could make over a room.

Or was I?

I stood up a little straighter. Come to think of it, I was resourceful. Maybe I could build a case the way I created a room — start from the basics and add the frills later.

Jane put her grocery bags into the cart, ran her credit card through the machine, and blew me a kiss. I watched her walk out of the store. And right there in Gelsons on Sunset Boulevard, standing in the twelve-items-or-less checkout, it suddenly hit me. The time had come for Lacy Fields to get off her duff and on the case.

The minute I got home, I stashed away the packages and finally put in the call I should have made ages ago to my longtime best friend, Molly Archer of Molly Archer Casting. We’d been Tri Delta sorority sisters back at Ohio State, meeting for the first time during Rush Week, when we stood in the middle of campus singing “Honky Tonk Women.” Molly was from a fancy suburb of Cleveland, while I’d grown up in a rural town outside Dayton, my determined mom an assistant manager at a Wal-Mart thirty miles away. Molly and I pledged the sorority and connected immediately — both of us were smart, curious about the world, and ready for new adventures. Our friendship grew tighter in the four years, and a week after graduation, we drove out to Los Angeles together to look for jobs. Now Molly’s name appeared in the end credits of a couple of dozen network television shows, and she was more hanky-swank than honky-tonk.

Her male assistant answered the phone and reported that Molly was on a conference call.

“Can she return?” he asked officiously.

“Return what?” I asked him, always amused by the L.A. colloquialism. “Return the sweater I bought her last Christmas? Return to the days of our youth?”

“She’ll return,” he said, hanging up quickly.

Five minutes later, the phone rang, and Molly said, “Lacy, dear, thank goodness you called. I’ve left a million messages, but I won’t complain that you’ve been avoiding me. I understand. If it were me, I’d be a werewolf howling at the moon.”

“No hair growing on my hands just yet,” I said, smiling. That was Molly — never skipping around the subject or playing coy. She hadn’t built the biggest casting agency in L.A. by being reserved.

“I should have rushed over when you didn’t answer my calls, but I was stuck in Copenhagen casting
Moon Over Denmark
. I’m about to sign Spike Lee as the native father. He’s perfect, right?”

“Not exactly your standard Scandinavian.”

“You know me. Always cast against type.” She chuckled. “Anyway, this is so awful about Dan. What have you been doing?”

“Wallowing,” I admitted. “But now I want to take some action.”

“Good! What can I do?” Molly asked animatedly. She’d been the sorority social chairwoman for a reason.

“To be blunt, I’d like to know something about the girl who died. The victim. Name of Tasha Barlow, née Theresa Bartowski.”

“Changed her name?” asked Molly with a tinge of scorn. “Don’t these kids know that ethnic is in? Much better to be Geraldo Rivera than Jerry Rivers, I always say.”

I laughed. “Whatever she called herself, she wanted to be an actress. I thought you might have run across her. Since the scouts stopped hanging out at Hollywood and Vine, the only place to be discovered is your doorstep.”

“Oh my God, how idiotic of me!” Molly boomed. “I didn’t even think of that. Hold on.”

She yelled out, “Ben!” and then told the imperious assistant she needed him to check something. I heard an exchange of voices, the clattering of a keyboard, and then Molly came back.

“Apparently, we have nothing on Tasha in the computer database, where we keep everybody active,” Molly said, going into business mode. “But Ben found her résumé and picture in a file folder. She’d sent it in herself. No agent. And…hmm.” I heard Molly flipping pages and then a brief silence while she read. “I see why we didn’t put her in the system. No creds — just a couple of ams in Idaho.”

I did an instantaneous translation. No credentials, just amateur shows.

“For a reference, she gave a high school acting teacher. And — wow, this is strange.” Molly stopped and I waited for her to go on, but the pause seemed interminable.

“What’s strange?”

“The girl didn’t have a single television credit, but she wrote ‘Professional Contact,’ with a phone number for Roy Evans.”

“Who’s he? The love child of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans?”

Molly laughed. “Prime-time correspondent on that network show
Night Beat
. He does puffy celebrity interviews and fawning chats with rock stars. Has no talent except toadying up to the stars.”

“You don’t sound like a fan.”

“Oh, I admire him. Brings obsequiousness to a new level.”

“What’s the connection with Tasha Barlow?”

“I have no idea,” Molly said briskly. “Let me call over to one of the producers at the network and find out. Can you hang on for a couple of minutes?”

“Sure, but you’re busy. I feel guilty taking you away.”

“Good. You keep feeling guilty and we’ll find out Dan isn’t.”

She put me on hold, and it occurred to me that Molly still had the same go-for-broke style I’d admired when we were in college. Freshman year, I knew I wanted to major in art history, but I couldn’t afford a lot of visits to museums. For Christmas, Molly had her mom buy me a membership to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The first time we all went, I stood in front of a Fra Angelica painting from the 1420s that I’d only seen in books, breathless at how the picture glimmered with gold, the image of Christ seeming to radiate light. Then I dragged Molly and her mom over to a Robert Rauschenberg collage and explained how the visual puns bridged the gab between Abstract Expressionism and pop art.

“I think your friend has a future,” Molly’s mom had said.

I could always count on Molly — but not in the usual ways. Sophomore year, I’d burst into tears the night before my French final, flummoxed by the
passé composé
. Molly had spent the previous summer in Nice, so I asked her for help. Instead of pulling out a grammar book, she went out and bought me a bottle of Beaujolais and a tape of
Last Tango in Paris
.

“All you need is a little inspiration,” Molly had said, tossing me the gifts. “A glass of wine and a night with Marlon Brando, and I guarantee an A.”

Well, it was an A-minus, but I never forgot.

“You won’t believe this!” Molly said exuberantly now, coming back to the phone.

“Tell me,” I said, eager for anything. Molly’s energy oozed over the phone, finally letting me feel hopeful rather than hapless.

“Tasha Barlow worked as a makeup girl on
Night Beat.
They hired her freelance for a few remote shoots, which is how she must have known Roy Evans.”

“A freelance makeup girl?”

“Better pay than a waitress if you’re trying to be an actress, and you get a foot — or a finger — in the door. Plus there can be good perks. Remember Noah Wyle from
ER
? He married his makeup artist.”

“Must be confusing when someone yells, ‘Code Red.’ Wyle thinks it’s a heart attack and his wife figures there’s a lipstick emergency.”

Molly laughed. “I don’t think Tasha was about to walk down an aisle. But listen to this. Tim, the producer I called, thinks Roy Evans is a major sleaze, and just the kind to hit on hair and makeup girls.”

“You think Roy and Tasha were…involved?”

“Why not? Makes sense. She obviously did more than powder his nose. You know these TV guys. Roy didn’t actually write a recommendation or put himself on the line, but telling Tasha she could use his name on her résumé probably got him a week of blow jobs.”

I snorted. “Lovely thought. Tim have any other news?”

“The show hadn’t used Tasha much, and Roy was the only one who got close to her. By the way, he thinks Roy’s talent would fit in a teacup. I told him more like a thimble.”

“You and Tim share the same opinion.”

“Mmm, I hope we’ll share even more,” said Molly, smacking her lips. “I owe you big, darling. I haven’t seen Tim in ages, but when we finished talking Tasha, he asked me out to dinner. Nine o’clock tonight at Spago Beverly Hills.”