Hollywood Killer Read online

  HOLLYWOOD KILLER

  MZ Kelly

  Note from the author

  This book, like all the Hollywood Alphabet Series novels, contains an interesting Hollywood fact or quote from a famous movie star. As you read, look for the fact or quote, and then look for details about how to win valuable prizes at the end of this book. Contests may be related to information in this book or Hollywood trivia in general. All contests are updated regularly, it’s easy to enter, and the prizes are great.

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  Also in the Hollywood Alphabet Series:

  Hollywood Assassin

  Hollywood Blood

  Hollywood Crazy

  Hollywood Dirty

  Hollywood Enemy

  Hollywood Forbidden

  Hollywood Games

  Hollywood Homicide

  Hollywood Intrigue

  Hollywood Jury

  Hollywood Lust

  TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

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  COMING SOON

  ONE

  The kiss was a killer.

  It seemed like I’d waited forever for this moment. Hudson Mackenzie and I were at the beach where our dogs were off doing what dogs do. The one-time Navy SEAL turned to me and I looked into those blue eyes that were endlessly seductive, drawing me into a make-believe realm. In this imaginary place we were alone without the distractions of the outside world. In my mind, I saw us in a little bungalow on some undiscovered tropical beach, the rain pelting down on the roof, mixing with the sound of waves breaking in the distance.

  A thin ray of moonlight illuminated that moment when he came closer, our lips finally touched, and the world exploded. It felt like we’d been rendered weightless, our bodies soaring like kites that had been severed from their earthly tethers. This was a kiss that brought back those feelings that only first love knows; a moment in time when heart and soul beat as one and spirits soar. I felt such a giddiness and lightness of being that for an instant I had the impression that I’d slipped the bonds of mortality.

  And then the killer kiss ended—in murder.

  TWO

  “Sorry,” I said, barely finding the strength to pull away from him as my phone rang.

  Hudson, or Hud, as he recently told me he preferred to be called, smiled. “Duty before pleasure.”

  “’Fraid so.”

  I brought the phone to my ear and heard my partner Pearl Kramer’s voice on the line. “I don’t know all the details, Kate, but we just caught a case. It involves the host of that TV talk show Hollywood Nation.”

  I immediately knew who he was talking about, having seen the show with my friends Natalie and Mo. “Olivia Ashcroft.”

  “Yeah. It looks like she’s okay, but her entire family was slaughtered.”

  I got the address and said, “I’m about forty-five out. Meet you at the scene.”

  I called over to my canine partner, Bernie, and put my phone away. I said to Hud, “I’ve got to go. Can I call you?”

  He pulled me closer to him. “You’d better.”

  I should probably explain about the phone call, my job, and how I ended up on a Malibu beach with a guy named Hudson Mackenzie.

  My name is Kate Sexton. I’m a detective with LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division, or RHD. A few months back I’d been assigned to Section One, a specialized unit that operates out of Hollywood Station and deals with some of the department’s most difficult and high profile homicides.

  My partner Bernie is the first canine ever assigned to RHD and Section One. He’d earned his chops over the past year by helping bring down some bad actors, and I’m not talking about the ones that star in the movies. Bernie is about one hundred twenty pounds of teeth and testosterone; a no nonsense hairball when it comes to crooks, but a first class scoundrel when there’s a female dog in sight. He’d sired a love puppy named Bubba almost a year ago after a romp with Hud’s dog, Thelma. After a brief stint, staying with my emotionally unstable mother, Bubba was back living with Hud and his doggy mama.

  I live in North Hollywood at an apartment complex called the Barkley Bungalows. My best friends, Natalie Bump and Mo Simpson, live next door. My friends are part-time private investigators known as the Sweet Sistahs. They make a habit of meddling in just about everything in my life, including my job and relationships. Natalie and Mo also have a part-time acting gig on a TV sitcom called Hollywood Girlz. They play a couple of clueless friends to Carly Hogg, another actress who lives in my apartment building.

  As for Hud, that’s a whole other story. I’d been divorced and had a series of failed relationships over the past couple of years, Hud being one of them. A month ago we’d gotten back together thanks to…I guess you could call it divine intervention. I’d happened to run into him in a grocery store the night after my partner on the police force had died.

  It’s a complicated story, so I’ll explain more about it later. For now, I’ll just say that Hud and I were taking things slowly, starting to get reacquainted again.

  After the drive back to Hollywood, I found the estate owned by Olivia Ashcroft off Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills. I got Bernie from the backseat of my car and saw that Pearl Kramer was parking up the street behind a marked patrol unit.

  Bernie and I walked over to the silver haired sixty-something detective and we exchanged hellos. Pearl had come out of retirement a few months back to assist with the department’s heavy workload, including helping out with Section One cases. The African-American one-time chief of detectives was smart, cool, and was the one person I knew I could always count on in a department that sometimes chose the interests of those in power over line staff.

  “Looks like a long night ahead,” Pearl said, glancing past the massive gates to Sugarland, the sprawling colonial estate owned by Olivia Ashcroft, a woman known as the gossip queen of Hollywood. From what I knew, Ashcroft was worth millions and often taped her talk show directly on the grounds of the sprawling complex of buildings that made up her estate.

  I met Pearl’s leathery eyes. “Her family…you said they’ve all been killed.”

  He nodded as we walked up the street to the gat
e. “Some kind of home invasion robbery gone wrong from what I know.”

  “The press…when they find out...”

  “I’ve already alerted patrol. They’re sending extra units for crowd control. The street will be a circus as soon as the media gets a whiff of this.”

  We stopped a few yards from the iron gates that spelled out Sugarland in cursive writing. I remembered reading somewhere that the name had something to do with Olivia Ashcroft’s grandparents owning a sugar cane plantation in the Caribbean at one time. I saw there were a couple of uniformed cops standing guard as Bernie sniffed a flower bed.

  Pearl turned and regarded me for a moment. “How are you doing?”

  I knew he was asking me how I coping after the recent suicide of my partner, Ted Grady. Ted had tracked down and killed a man who had murdered his daughter in a drive-by shooting several years ago. He’d then taken his own life in front of me.

  At the time I was so traumatized by what happened that I’d decided to quit the police force. I’d only changed my mind after a lot of soul searching that included a real or imaginary conversation—I still wasn’t sure which it was—with my deceased father about the nature of loss and love. I was still trying to understand everything he’d said, but the conversation had helped me get through some of the most difficult days of my life.

  My decision to keep working was a tribute to both my father and Ted who’d helped me understand that I could chose love over the evil that existed in the world by finding justice for the victims of crime.

  I brushed a hand through my brown hair that has a mind of its own and met Pearl’s compassionate eyes. “I’m doing okay, despite everything.” I smiled. “Trying to keep what was the best about Ted’s life alive.”

  He nodded, his gaze drifting over to the sprawling grounds of the estate for a moment. “He was a good man.”

  We moved up to the gates where we were met by one of the uniformed officers, a guy named Percy Ross, who I knew from past cases. He was in his fifties and had the tired eyes of someone who had seen too much of the dark side of life and death.

  “The vics are the husband and daughter of Olivia Ashcroft,” Ross said. “They’re both upstairs in the main residence, shot through the head. From what we know, she found them when she got home from some kind of social function. Ms. Ashcroft…she’s…” He rubbed a hand over his wide jaw. “…distraught about everything.”

  “Is anyone in the residence with her?” Pearl asked.

  “Just one of ours, Gracie Lopez. She called a friend of the family to come over. It’s pretty…” Ross took a moment. “…we may need some medical intervention. Like I said, Ms. Ashcroft’s not handling things very well.”

  We thanked him and moved past the gate. I knew from prior victim contacts that you never knew how a family member would respond to a homicide. I’d seen everything from abject despondency to violence. I’d even responded to one homicide where the wife of the deceased husband had assaulted one of the responding officers, putting him in the hospital.

  “What do you know about Olivia Ashcroft?” Pearl asked me as we walked up a meandering path to the front door. The yard was perfectly manicured with flowering vines and magnolia trees, like something out of a magazine. I saw there were guest cottages and outbuildings, probably used in the production of Ashcroft’s TV show. I also noticed there were security cameras trained on the driveway and front door to the estate.

  “I’ve heard she’s worth a small fortune. Her show is syndicated nationwide. All the celebs make the rounds and do everything from chit chat to cooking. From what I’ve seen on TV, it looked like she had the perfect life—until now.”

  We met another uniformed cop at the front door who told us that Officer Lopez was inside with Ashcroft. We were about to head through the front door when we saw headlights coming up the street. It was the first of what would probably eventually be dozens of TV satellite vans.

  “Let the circus begin,” I said to Pearl as we went inside.

  The home was comfortably furnished with slipcovered sofas and brass lamps. Polished hardwood floors and a raised beamed ceiling gave the great room a bright cheery feel that contrasted with the nightmare that was unfolding for the surviving family member.

  We found Officer Lopez with Ashcroft in a family room that was adjacent to the kitchen. Ashcroft was slumped down in a chair, weeping. I knew from her TV show that the Hollywood maven was in her mid-thirties, with blonde hair, green eyes, and unblemished skin. The name Grace Kelly was often heard in the conversations about Ashcroft, not only because of their similar physical characteristics, but also because there was a regal bearing in the way the talk show hostess presented herself. I remembered her from a show last year when she’d interviewed the first lady and thought the hostess had far outshone the subject of her interview.

  That all now seemed to be a thing of the past. Ashcroft continued to sob, holding her head in her hands. If she was aware of our presence, she gave nothing up. Officer Lopez came over to us, the concern in her face obvious.

  “I called her best friend to come over,” Lopez whispered. “She’s…” The youthful cop lowered her voice even further. “She’s been talking about taking her own life.”

  Ashcroft was still crying, not even looking in our direction. I said to Lopez, “Could you mind my dog and give us a couple of minutes to look upstairs? We’ll then try to talk to her and assess things.”

  She nodded. “Her husband, Martin, is in the master bedroom upstairs. The daughter’s name is Madrid. She’s in the last bedroom down the hall.” Her eyes took on a sheen and her gaze moved away. “It’s pretty bad.” She then took Bernie’s lead and went back over to the sofa with him, taking a seat near the distraught woman.

  Pearl and I gloved up and put on paper booties before heading up the stairway. When we got to the upstairs landing, I saw there was a long hallway with white carpeting. There were bloody footprints leading away from both the master bedroom and from what I assumed was the bedroom down the hall.

  “Looks like just one set of prints,” Pearl said, stopping outside the master bedroom for a moment. He used his glasses to take a closer look. “It could be from the wife, maybe after she discovered the bodies.”

  The prints were only partial smears on the carpet. “Hard to say. We’ll have to ask her about them, take her shoes.” I glanced down the hallway, my eyes following the trail of bloody prints, where I knew the body of Ashcroft’s daughter was probably located.

  We made our way inside the expansive master bedroom, where we found Martin Ashcroft on the floor. He’d been shot in the upper torso, blood smeared on the wall behind him. There was a nearby wall safe that had been concealed by a painting that was tossed on the floor. The safe was open and empty.

  “Single shot, through and through, at close range,” Pearl said, after examining the body. “We’ll have to look for the round and casing.”

  The victim was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. It was after midnight and it occurred to me that whoever had done the killing might have immediately brought Ashcroft upstairs after entering the residence, knowing there was a safe in the bedroom. If that was the case, it meant that our suspect had been in the house before and possibly knew the victim.

  We spent another ten minutes in the bedroom, our cursory examination not revealing anything remarkable. As we were leaving, Pearl got a call that the department’s SID, or Scientific Investigation Division, was at the front door. He asked them to wait outside until we came back downstairs.

  We found Olivia Ashcroft’s daughter, Madrid, in her bed. The teenager looked like she’d turned away from her attacker at the last minute. The gunshot that ended her life had entered in the left temporal region, leaving a gruesome smattering of brain matter against the wall behind the bed. The girl looked to be in her early teens. My heart ached for both the short life that had been senselessly ended and her grieving mother.

  We took a closer look at the body and saw that her clothing, a pair of s
horts and a tank top, were lying on the floor next to the bed. She was still wearing a bra that had been pushed up, exposing her small breasts. Her panties were in the bed near her feet.

  “What do you think?” I asked Pearl after we’d taken a look, knowing what he’d probably say.

  “Dad was probably killed first. The intruder then came here, sexually assaulted the girl, and shot her.”

  “I get the impression that our suspect might have known the layout, maybe even the victims.”

  He nodded. “Let’s talk to mom, see what she can tell us.”

  We went downstairs. I glanced over and saw that Officer Lopez was still with Olivia Ashcroft, who was in the same position as when we’d left her; slumped over and crying. I then went over to the front door and met up with Bob Woodley, an SID supervisor I’d worked with before.

  “Two victims upstairs,” I said, keeping my voice low. “They’re in the master bedroom and the one at the end of the hall. It looks like the daughter was raped.” I glanced through a window, seeing a small army of technicians were coming up the driveway. “Let’s keep the traffic down. No more than two of your people in any of the bedrooms at a time.”

  “I can handle my people.”

  I’m five nine and looked down at the much shorter crime technician supervisor. I’d had problems with Woodley’s lack of control at crime scenes in the past. “Make sure that you do, or you’ll hear about it from me.”

  He held on my eyes for a moment before turning away.

  I then huddled with Pearl in a home office for a moment and said, “How do you want to handle the interview?”

  “Why don’t you take the lead. Maybe she’ll respond better to a woman.” His gaze moved off for a moment. “Let’s hold off on telling her about the sexual assault until we’re sure. I think it could push her over the edge.”

  I dreaded the interview, but knew that a female lead was probably best. “Agreed. I think she’s already teetering on the edge.”

  I went back into the family room and relieved Gracie Lopez. I then handed Bernie’s leash to Pearl and took a seat across from Ashcroft. Her eyes were still downcast. She continued to weep, apparently unaware of her surroundings.