Red Flags (6 page)

Chapter Ten

I froze. “Excuse me?”

Board member Bob replied. “You've solved crimes before. Figuring out what happened to an executive at your new sponsor ought to be part of your duties. Don't you think?” The last was addressed to the others in the room, who mostly agreed.

Sharon raised her eyebrows. “Are you an investigator also, Kate?”

“She's a racecar driver.” My father's cold, flat voice cut through the murmurs. “
Not
an investigator.”

Coleman frowned. “She knows the racing world, and that's where Billy's death took place. Haven't you unmasked killers before?”

You know very well, since your son was collateral damage.
I replied to the group. “I've been lucky to help the police catch a few criminals. But it's not what I do. Besides, we don't know Billy's death had anything to do with racing.”

“You know the players in the Reilly family, the bank structure, and racing,” Bob put in. “It couldn't hurt us to have someone involved in the investigation making sure Frame Savings is the number one priority. Someone we can count on to bring a minimum of publicity to Billy's…situation.”

It could hurt me.

My father's voice got frostier. “We have no business asking her to have anything to do with Billy's death. No right. Much less to play on her feelings of obligation to us for the sponsorship. All she owes us for that is to race and represent us well.”

“No one's threatening her sponsorship.” Sharon looked me in the eye. “Whatever happens, Kate, you have a contract. We're delighted you're representing us.”

I could hear the “but” coming.

“Right, gentlemen?” Sharon surveyed the room, eliciting nods. “Don't worry about that, Kate. But—”
There it is.
“—it's true you're in a unique position.”

“I didn't know Billy. Or his friends.” I tried to stay calm, to keep the desperation and panic out of my voice.

“But you are more familiar with his various activities or circles than anyone else.” Sharon smiled. “Perhaps you can keep an eye or ear open, in case his death had anything to do with the racing world? So there's no negative blow-back on the Frame Savings brand.”

Sharon glanced at my father and spoke to me. “While we're not asking you to whip out your magnifying glass and outdo the police to capture Billy's killer, it's fair to say the promotion of the Frame Savings brand is ultimately one of your goals as our representative. Wouldn't you agree?”

She'd backed me into a corner. I hoped my frustration and reluctance didn't show on my face, at least not as much as anger and fear showed on my father's.

I forced a smile. “I'll see what I can find out and keep the board posted.”

Everyone was in a congenial mood after that, except for my father. For my part, the request to solve Billy's murder—clearly that's what they wanted me to do—only added to how conflicted I felt about having Frame Savings as a sponsor. The upside was the fulfillment of my racing dreams. The downside was dealing with my father's family. Being beholden to them. Having to interact with them.

Coleman stopped me on my way out of the conference room, shaking my hand again. “Looking forward to your results, on and off the track, Kate.”

“I can only guarantee you performance in a racecar. I'm a driver, not an investigator.”

“Perhaps you need to figure out how to be both, since that's what our brand needs right now. I'd hate to have to make more changes so soon.” He touched a hand to the knot of his tie and walked away, leaving me reeling.

As I pulled myself together, I heard a new voice whisper, “An attractive girl, but not feminine. And quite aggressive.”

I stiffened, suspecting it was the only board member who hadn't spoken a word in the meeting. I slowly turned to survey the room. As I expected, the whisperer stood with the grouchy board member and the executive assistant, all of them trying to pretend they hadn't been talking about me.

Sharon touched me on the shoulder. “Thank you for being here, Kate, and for representing us.”

“Thank you for the support.”

“Don't worry about them.” She glanced at the critical trio. “It takes time for the old guard to accept women in new roles.”

“I assume you'd know?”

“Indeed.” She smiled. “Best of luck tomorrow.”

I felt better after that, but I still felt the weight of the words and requests as my father escorted me into the elevator.

He waited to speak until we exited on the ground floor and stood near the elevators to the parking garage, out of the bustle of people moving in all directions. “I think the meeting went well. Thank you again for coming to speak with everyone.”

“Of course. Thank you for everything you did to arrange the sponsorship.”

“All I did was suggest your name. I abstained from the voting, in fact. The marketing team and board of directors made the decision. It's not a gift, you earned it.”

“Having Reilly as a last name helped.”

“Of course it did. But, as we know, there are other members of the family not being sponsored. It's not only about the name. You heard them, they want visibility and results.”

I understood the line between a gift from family and sponsorship by Frame Savings. I was almost comfortable with it. But I knew outsiders wouldn't grasp, or care about, the subtleties, and I knew I'd hear about “daddy paying for my ride.” The sponsorship was worth it.

I looked at my father, seeing the same blue eyes and almost-black hair I saw in the mirror every morning. He was also short, though taller than me, and slim. Much as I sometimes wanted to, I couldn't deny our obvious genetic connection.

“Thank you anyway, and thanks for the help today.” My poise deserted me. I could talk potential sponsors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I fumbled around my father, afraid of saying too much and committing myself beyond my comfort level, but also afraid of losing the connection. Family was complicated.

He cleared his throat. “You may feel obligated to look into Billy's death. I don't want you doing that.”

I don't want to either, but the board certainly does.

He struggled with something, starting to speak twice and stopping, before saying simply, “I don't want you hurt. Let the police handle it. Leave it alone.”

I agreed with him in theory. “It's hard for me ignore a request from a brand-new sponsor, much less when it's the same request made by the race organizer.” I described the meeting I'd had with Nikki Gray and Don Kessberg. “At this point, it's hard to say no. If I
can
say no.” Coleman hadn't made it seem like an option.

“Try.”

“We'll see.” I shrugged, feeling like a recalcitrant teenager. “I need to get moving, and I'm sure you need to get back to the meeting. Thank you again.”

His lips compressed to a tight line, but he didn't make any more demands. He kissed my cheek goodbye. “Good luck tomorrow. I'll try to get out there for part of it.”

“It's the first step. I guarantee it'll go well.”

The elevator arrived with a chime, and my father put a hand on my forearm to stop me moving forward. “I'm sure it will. Be careful.
Please
.” He watched me as the doors closed.

I spent the first five minutes of the drive back to the Beverly Hills Hotel whining to myself, variations on the theme of “But I don't want to!”

I considered the issue rationally. I didn't have to confront Billy's killer. I didn't even have to figure out who it was. All I needed was for the race organizers and my sponsors to
think
I was helpful. Keeping them happy with me, for whatever reason, was a good idea. I'd ask some questions and, in the unlikely event I dug up useful information, I'd turn it over to the police.

I got back to the hotel with a couple hours to kill before my visit to Maddie's movie set. When I found the housekeeper cleaning my room, I wandered out to the pool and marveled at the immaculate cabanas, colorful chaise lounges, and beautiful people arrayed around the water that no one swam in. Apparently “pool” in L.A. meant “place to be seen” not “place to get wet.”

Before I could do more than pull my feet onto the pink chaise, an attentive and stunningly attractive male server appeared, asking if he could get me anything to eat or drink. If my order of a simple iced tea disappointed him, he didn't let on.

I dug through my handbag for a small notebook and a pen, squared my shoulders, and called Don Kessberg. He met me at the pool half an hour later.

He perched on the center section of the next chaise over, facing me, elbows on his knees. I couldn't see his eyes behind his mirrored aviators.

We'd done no more than exchange greetings when the attractive server was back.

“Club soda, lime, no ice.” Don waved him away. “Thank you for agreeing to look into this. Nikki and I are both grateful.”

“She's interesting.” It was the best I could come up with.

He surprised me with a grin. “She's got her idiosyncrasies, but she's not dumb. She puts on an act.”

Yet she took up with Billy…

Chapter Eleven

I eyed Don Kessberg. “What was Billy doing to help the race organization?”

The server reappeared. Don took the glass, refusing the straw, and drank a third of the club soda down in one go. “Billy was supposed to be contributing marketing ideas to increase press and attendance. He was nominally in charge of logistics for the SportsCar Championship paddock. And he had stepped in to take the lead on the celebrity race.”

That was a whole lot to dig into. “What does ‘take the lead' mean?”

“He interpreted it as trying to be every celebrity's best friend.”

“Anything else?”

Don took another long drink, silent and unreadable behind his sunglasses.

“Don, you've got to give me something. I can't do anything if you won't talk to me.”

“You can't repeat this to Nikki. I don't want to ruin my relationship with her.”

“Fine. I'm not here for gossip.”

“All right.” He took a deep breath and finally removed his glasses, revealing bloodshot eyes. “Billy supposedly had experience in the racing world and in big business. All he was really good at was talking a good game.”

“You said he had three roles.”

“Two of them, paddock logistics and marketing work, were small projects, easy to hand over. To be honest, I thought he couldn't do much damage.”

“What happened?”

“He promised innovative ideas for pitching stories to new media, but in the end, all we got was half-illiterate posts from racing bloggers no one's ever heard of and a spread in a trade journal for the porn industry—excuse me, the adult film industry. He did zero work, though he did spend an afternoon with the adult film reporter.”

I hoped my mouth wasn't hanging open. “What does a magazine about adult films have to do with the race weekend?”

“Sponsorship. There's always a car in the paddock sponsored by an adult film company, usually racing in one of the support series. Sometimes the producer or distributor is driving the car, since it's big business on the other side of these hills in the Valley. Haven't you seen the porn stars walking around the paddock at the Grand Prix?”

“Someone pointed out one woman last year. Until then, I thought everyone was kidding.” I remembered the woman wearing six-inch platform heels, a bikini top that was three sizes too small, and a skirt the width of an Ace bandage. Plenty of race fans or workers wore skimpy or revealing clothing, but that outfit was extreme.

“They show up every year. Paddock regulars.” He was amused. “Anyway, Billy talked big about marketing and press coverage. He left all the work to the office staff. He couldn't return follow-up calls or e-mails to the journalists who responded to his pitch, which we had to edit to correct misspellings and factual inaccuracies. We got basically nothing out of it. That was one project.”

He finished his beverage and set the glass on the ground next to him. “The other was the SCC paddock setup. He completely screwed that up, too.”

I knew the SportsCar Championship, a support race at Long Beach to the main event of the IndyCar race, had been in the same patch of parking lot for the last five years, almost without change in arrangement. “How hard could that be?”

“He'd had a
better
idea about paddock configuration, and he sent out a notice with a schematic to all the teams, without telling anyone else. It took three phone calls from irate owners before I caught on.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “I don't know what he was like in the rest of his life, but in my experience, everything that boy touched turned to shit.”

No shock there.
“What was his role with the celebrity race?”

“He was on the in-house team organizing it. He liked to think he was in charge. We have a committee that picks the celebrities and hands them over to the racing school, which does their thing. Once the celebs are trained, we set up the press opportunities and manage their schedules. He was on the committee at Nikki's insistence, and he introduced himself to the celebrities as in charge of the event. Then didn't do anything.”

“That must have been annoying.”

He shrugged. “It was more embarrassing than anything. You're not from here, right?”

“Albuquerque.”

“The thing about L.A. is we don't pay attention to celebrities. We see them, but we don't gush, we don't freak out, we don't posture in front of them. We treat them like fellow human beings and let them live their lives.” He glanced around the pool area. “Like those two over there—” he gestured with his chin to the opposite corner “—hottest power couple right now, but no one's freaking out.”

I craned my neck and stared at Kim and Kanye for a few seconds, before realizing what I was doing.
Play it cool, Kate.

Don smirked. “At the Grand Prix Association, we've always prided ourselves on creating a no-ego environment with this race. We treat the stars equally, whether you're an Oscar winner, Olympic gold medalist, or the local, non-famous auction-winner. And our staff doesn't ask for autographs, doesn't ask for a selfie with them. Like members of the media, we don't take advantage of our access to them for our own purposes. But not Billy. He acted like an asshole. Photos and autographs all around, sucking up to the biggest names and ignoring everyone else.”

“Billy was a jerk, caused extra work, and pretended he knew it all. How did you put up with him?
Why
did you?”

“Nikki wanted him there, and ultimately, she signs my paychecks. It was…frustrating.”

“Couldn't you push back? You're the one with years of experience. Couldn't you fire him?”

“Seven damn years of running this race, and eight years before that running my own damn team. You think I didn't
try
to push back?” Don surged to his feet and loomed over me. “You think I wasn't angry that a twenty-five-year-old with more talent in his dick than between his ears was supposed to help me? That the loser screwing my boss was shoved in my face?”

Anger rolled off of him. I sat still, ready for anything, as he clenched and unclenched his fists. He bit out the next words. “But you tell me how I was supposed to boot his ass if I wanted to keep my job and put on a race.”

I understood why Don and Nikki thought the cops might arrest Don for Billy's murder. “I wasn't accusing you. I was trying to understand.”

Don gave one curt nod and slipped his sunglasses back on, turning and starting to pace back and forth in front of our seats.

I exhaled and glanced around the pool area. No one seemed to notice Don's tension. Or they weren't acting like they noticed, which was close enough. I decided to get the tough questions out of the way.

“At the risk of making you mad again, why might the cops start looking at you?”

His smile was laced with chagrin. “My temper, though I don't often lose it.” He walked back and forth two more times, then stopped. “Plus the fact I've never had anything good to say about Billy. Plenty of people can attest to the opposite. To be blunt, I'm not sorry the asshole is dead.”

I agreed, but kept it to myself. “You said he'd ruffled feathers in the race organization. Who in particular did he make angry?”

Don sat down again and propped his sunglasses on top of his head. “Mostly me. I didn't want to burden my staff. But also my marketing and PR guru Erica Aarons, because she had to pick up the extra work he created with his
genius
press ideas.”

“That's it?”

“I think so. He pissed off Elizabeth Rogers over at the SCC, with how much he bungled their logistics.” He thought a moment. “I think Penny, Maddie Theabo's assistant, was furious at him the other day.”

“He got around.”

“I'm not saying any of those gals killed Billy.”

“I don't think they did either. But I want to find out what he was up to and come up with some ideas why he was killed. Maybe that'll help the police figure out who did it.”

“You're the pro.”

I stifled an eye-roll. “Anyone else you can think of who might have been mad at Billy?”

“Honestly, Nikki wasn't happy with him lately. She said one more stunt and she'd show him the door. I didn't take her seriously at the time, but maybe there was something to it.”

“She said he was going to leave her.”

“Maybe he was. Maybe she was going to dump him. I have no idea.” He checked his watch. “I need to go sweet-talk a sponsor.”

We both stood up, and he smiled easily this time. “I'm sorry for getting riled up a minute ago. I appreciate your help. The whole race organization does. I can't offer to pay you, but we'll do what we can to promote you.”

Back in my room, I thought about what Don had told me and wondered if Billy had angered as many people in the business world or his personal life as in the racing world. Those would be harder questions to answer, since there was no one I wanted to talk to for information, except my father. He might not want to help.