Hollywood Blood: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Page 19

  “I’m not sure what you mean?” I said.

  “Mr. F gave me the bird,” Mo said. “I look like a chicken with a Mohawk down there. Good thing I’m single, cause if a rooster saw my hen house right now he might laugh his cock-a-doodle-do off.”

  I raised a brow, getting a visual that I didn’t want. I turned to Natalie with a blank expression.

  “It’ll grow on you, Mo,” Natalie said. She turned to me. “Clyde was a little put off at first, too, but now he’s pretty happy with Mr. F’s work.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Clyde told me it’s the first time he’s ever made love to a bear.” She smiled. “Think Koala. Wanna see?”

  “No, absolutely not.” I quickly changed the subject, asking if Prissy was around.

  “Mind the shop for a few, Mo?” Natalie asked.

  “Okay, but I’m blowing a whistle if I see any more trouser worms. I’m making a citizen’s arrest, haul’n his ass straight to jail.”

  We found Prissy in the backroom wearing a leather outfit. Lots of silver chains and pendants hung from his neck. He came out of a chair and hugged me. Because of the height difference I almost got impaled by a bone necklace.

  We sat around the table and watched as Prissy poured a red liquid from a quart jar into several smaller vials. “Chicken blood,” he explained in his high-pitched voice. “It’s one of our most popular items.”

  I know I shouldn’t have asked, but said, “What’s it used for?”

  Prissy looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in Hollywood, which covers a lot of ground. “Rites of initiation, foreplay, raising the dead, incantations, curses, and potions.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ve been working on a potion,” Natalie offered. “Something that would make Harry Potter proud.”

  I didn’t ask for details because I knew it probably involved sex, but got them anyway.

  “A few drops and it makes someone dumb as a hammer,” Natalie explained. “Mo and me figure we can use it one of these days in the snoop business.”

  I was about to ask if she’d give me a few drops for Skully, then realized he already was dumb as a hammer. I changed the subject. “Prissy, I’m here because Natalie said you might have some information about Myra.”

  “I’ve been such a pussy,” he said, his jaw setting. “But there comes a time when a girl just has to say something.”

  Natalie fiddled with the blood vials, knocking one over on the table, as Prissy went on. “Myra was in the store a few months back. She was with that blonde woman who was killed. Her picture has been on TV.”

  “Rose?” I asked as Natalie cleaned up the mess and mumbled something about being a clumsy wanker.

  Prissy nodded at me. “They were buying some clothing and a couple of rings. I remember wondering at the time if they were on drugs because they were acting silly.”

  What he had to say was interesting, but I didn’t think it was useful until he continued. “I noticed they had tattoos. I think it was some kind of phrase written in Latin on their arms.”

  While we’d discussed the tattoos the women all had in common at the taskforce meetings several times, when Prissy mentioned them something occurred to me.

  Chandra Martin.

  I’d seen a partial tattoo on her arm at the Marilyn Bryant crime scene. I now realized that the strange writing might be Latin. Could her tattoo be the same Latin phrase for, Sisters of the Blood, the other women had?

  Then other things began to align. Chandra’s goth attire. Her fascination with death, including telling me that her boyfriend thought death was weird, but crazy fun. It had all been right in front of me. Had I been so focused on the investigation that I’d overlooked what should have been obvious? Could Chandra be involved in the cult and using her inside information about the investigation to manipulate us?

  “The tattoos,” I said to Prissy, angry at myself that I might have missed some key evidence, “we already know about them, so I’m not sure if it’s any help.”

  “There’s something else.” Prissy brushed a hand through his orange hair. “Rose came by the shop again a few weeks later without Myra. She was with that old guy I’ve seen on TV.”

  “I’m not sure what guy you’re talking about.”

  “I’ve seen him with the rapper who was killed. He’s always in the background at those award shows.”

  “Harley Porter?”

  Prissy shrugged. “I’m not sure about his name.”

  Natalie described Porter. “African-American, about five-three. A slaphead with lots of gold chains and more testosterone than a rooster.”

  “That’s the guy,” Prissy said. “He and Rose were acting real chummy. He bought her a bunch of jewelry. I think they might have been friends with benefits.”

  ***

  After meeting with Prissy, Bernie and I went to my mom’s house to spend the night since we had no other place to go. I assumed Mom was still at her friend’s house because no one was home.

  I settled in and called Charlie to fill him in on what I’d learned. After sympathizing with my forced vacation and impending reassignment, he said that he’d check with Bob Woodley on Chandra Martin and call me back.

  Charlie got back to me a few minutes later. “Martin’s on vacation for a couple of days—something about her boyfriend being sick. Woodley doesn’t know where she went exactly.”

  “Did he mention anything about the boyfriend?”

  “Just that he met him once. Said he’s a real freak, a little scary with lots of makeup and piercings. He doesn’t remember the guy’s name and there’s nothing in Martin’s personnel file on him.”

  I told him my concerns about Chandra, that I thought we should try to find her and bring her in for questioning. I then asked him how they intended to proceed with Harley Porter.

  “I’m going to fill Skully in on what you learned. I’ll tell him you got the information before you were pulled off the case. I’m sure he’ll want us to bring Porter in for questioning. In the meantime, I’ll try and locate Martin but keep it on the down low.”

  “What about Karma?” I asked. “Is she going to cancel the party?”

  “No way. She said that with all the people she’s inviting to her party and with the cops being there, she’ll be safer than ever.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. An audience, especially a big audience, is just what Azazel and his Predators want.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Everyone at the party is going to be in costume. Tomorrow is Halloween.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  An hour after I got off the phone with Charlie, I was in a new pair of jammies that I’d bought on the way to my Mom’s house since everything I owned was lost in the fire. I was covered with cheesy Fug-dust and half-way through a glass of pity party wine when inspiration struck.

  I felt lonely and picked up my iPhone. “Siri, I need some help,” I said to my phone’s electronic personal assistant.

  “How may I help you, Hot Stuff?” Siri asked.

  Okay, so I had Siri take liberties with my name and the truth—who doesn’t? I also had to admit that I liked Siri’s voice. There’s something calm and soothing about her. It wasn’t the first time that I’d talked to her out of loneliness.

  “I need a man,” I said.

  “There are 3,792,621 people in the Los Angeles city limits, Hot Stuff. About fifty-two percent of those people are men.”

  “Okay, let’s narrow this down a little. I need a hot guy.”

  “At any one time, 3.7 percent of the population is running a fever,” Siri said. “That means that there are approximately 72,970 hot men in Los Angeles.”

  This wasn’t working. “Siri, I mean that I need a man who is sexually attractive.”

  I’d apparently given her a tall order. She took a moment before saying, “There are 397 escort services in Los Angeles. Would you like their phone numbers sorte
d by locations closest to you?”

  I gave up and told Siri that Hot Stuff would talk to her later. I sipped my wine and popped another Fug into my mouth. My phone rang and for some reason, maybe it was the wine, I thought I was still talking to Siri.

  “Hot Stuff doesn’t need an escort service,” I said.

  “Well that’s probably a good thing,” I heard a man say.

  I was confused. “Who is this?”

  “It’s the guy you call, Mack, Hot Stuff.”

  I was mortified. Now I was sure that I was the world’s biggest idiot. I thought about hanging up and crawling into bed, but then I thought better of it. Maybe Siri had somehow given me my wish? I tried to think of something clever to say about escort services as a comeback line but drew a blank.

  “If you’re looking for an appliance, I’m out of business,” I finally said, confirming my idiocy.

  “I saw what happened to your apartment on TV. I’m just checking to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m not bad for a homeless person who’s out of a job.” I went on for a moment, telling him about my reassignment and explaining that I wasn’t really out of a job, at least not yet, but it felt like it.

  “I’m at my office working late,” Mack said, after commiserating with me. “Would you have a few minutes to stop by? I’ve come up with something on the case that I think you’ll find interesting.”

  I looked at my cheesy hands, my glass of wine, and thought about how pathetic I’d been, talking to a computerized personal assistant and feeling sorry for myself. There was that but also the thought about being with Mack again—a hot guy.

  “I can be there in an hour,” I said.

  Thank you, Siri!

  ***

  I knocked on the window outside Mack’s office and waited as he came down the hall. I’d tapped what little I had in savings earlier for my new jammies, along with a lapel jacket, cashmere sweater, and a pair of black tuxedo pants. My hair, for once, seemed to be cooperating.

  I admired my new outfit in the glass, then saw the black labs trailing behind the private investigator inside the office.

  I looked at Bernie. “You’re not getting any younger. Pace yourself.” He licked and wagged, then ran off with the girls when Mack opened the door.

  “Glad you could make it,” Mack said. He had on an open collar blue shirt and tan pants. He looked relaxed and smelled like a combination of sandalwood and something more exotic and inviting that I couldn’t place.

  “No problem,” I said. “I was just having an intimate dinner for one with some Fugs and wine when you called.”

  He looked at me and smiled. “Fugs?”

  “It’s probably better that you don’t know.”

  We settled into his office. He turned on his computer and told me why he’d called. “I’ve been doing some thinking about these murders, how they all seem to revolve around Karma.”

  I took a moment and brought him up to speed on everything, including what we’d learned about Azazel, his computer games, and the players in the deadly game.

  “The Predators apparently get to decide on the murders and Azazel uses Myra as his proxy to kill. The FBI thinks she’s been brainwashed.”

  “I think that’s likely,” he agreed. “But I also think there’s more to the story.”

  I watched as he accessed several computer screens about Karma. “The Internet has a lot of information about our superstar—how she rose to fame with her first hit, her hair styles, her relationship with Trevon Jackson before he died, and her celebrity friends.” He glanced over at me. “What’s missing is her background, how she grew up, her parents, that sort of thing.”

  “From what I’ve been told, her parents are dead and she was raised by Harriett Nordquist.”

  “That’s true. But what you don’t know is how her parents died.”

  He went into his e-mail account again and printed out a message. He handed it to me and explained. “I’ve had one of my investigators do some digging. Karma’s mother died in childbirth, but what happened to her father is another story. Everything you read on the Internet says that her father, James Redford, died in a car accident. That’s not true. The real story about her father has been edited and covered up.

  “According to my investigator, the cover-up was carefully orchestrated so that the real story could be kept out of the press. Apparently, when Karma’s career began to take off she was concerned that if the truth got out, the tabloids would have a field day with everything.”

  I read what he’d given me and then looked up into his blue eyes. I got lost for a moment, thinking about being on a tropical island with him. Then I forced myself to focus on what I’d read. “Her father was murdered?”

  “Redford’s girlfriend, Elaine Deerfield, was convicted of stabbing him to death. She’s serving a life sentence in Florida for the crime. We’re going to talk to her tomorrow.”

  I pushed the e-mail aside. “It’s interesting but I’m not sure what, if anything, it means.”

  “It wouldn’t necessarily mean much by itself.” He turned back to his computer and brought up another screen, printed out some additional e-mail correspondence, and handed it to me. “Redford was involved in a relationship before Karma was born. He had a daughter as a result of that involvement.”

  “Karma has a sister?”

  “Half-sister. The girl’s mother took off right after she was born and had nothing to do with her. Redford raised her, but had some run-ins with child protective services for abuse and neglect of the girl. He eventually gave up his parental rights and she went into the foster care system.”

  He handed me the information. I read the girl’s name out loud. “Lenore Christine Redford.”

  “The story gets interesting from here,” Mack said. “Lenore spent her life in foster care before she ended up with a family in Texas. She was abused by her foster father who sold her into sexual slavery. One of the men he sold Lenore to tried to kill her, but she escaped into some woods. The police were called and the men involved were killed during a shootout.

  “Several years later, after Lenore’s foster father was convicted of molestation and sex trafficking, he was released from prison. He was killed a few years later by a hit and run driver. The case has never been solved.”

  “And Lenore?” I asked, feeling my pulse quicken. “What happened to her?”

  “That’s the million dollar question. She went into another foster home for a brief period of time before running away. She then disappeared, went off the radar.”

  I let what he’d said settle in for a moment. I then said what I knew we were both wondering. “Could Lenore Redford be Myra?”

  Mack was about to answer when we heard a noise from the back of the office. We realized it was Bernie and the girls.

  “Hope he doesn’t end up in traction,” I said.

  “It will be the sitter’s problem if he does.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean?”

  “I’ve got a great lady who’s a sitter for Thelma and Louise when I’m away. Bernie can stay with her and the girls while we’re gone, if you’d like.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “When I said we’re going to talk to Elaine Deerfield tomorrow, I meant us, as in you and me. I’ve got a chartered jet ready to leave for Florida in an hour.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The costume is perfect.

  Myra wears a dark green dress, a green belt and matching hat with medical crosses, and green and black leggings. She’s a nurse with some attitude, a little sexy but also safe. She’ll blend in at tonight’s party, hardly be noticed, unlike the celebrities who will try to outdo one another with their elaborate outfits.

  “Mommy, I like your costume,” Emily says, coming into the master bedroom where she sees her mother looking in the mirror. “Can I dress up, too?”

  Myra turns to her daughter and smiles. “Let’s see what we can find in the closet.”

  While their housekeeper,
Gloria, cleans the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom, they find one of Myra’s dresses and a pair of heels that Emily puts on. Playing dress-up is one of her daughter’s favorite activities.

  Myra finds an old purse in the back of the closet, removes the wallet, and hands the handbag to Emily. “You need a purse to go with the dress. It’s the perfect outfit.”

  The girl takes the bag and admires herself in the mirror while Myra glances through the wallet. It has her driver’s license from Texas with the name she’d chosen.

  Lenore Hastings.

  She remembers that she once had a school teacher, Miss Hastings, whom she liked. After she had her last name legally changed, Myra recalls there was a time when she decided that she needed to start a new life without Azazel.

  Her new life began in Houston. She even married for a brief time. But then her husband became abusive and she left him.

  After her divorce, Azazel found her again. He was angry with her at first but soon they had fallen in love all over again. A flood of warmth washes over Myra as she recalls those days with him, the sex, the drugs, and the excitement of killing.

  They had planned everything together, first taking revenge on her foster father by running him down in the street. Then they focused on her biological father, the man who had abandoned her to the violence of the foster system.

  Myra remembers confronting him one night after her transformation. How she’d dyed her hair black, dressed in dark clothing, and hid in his closet. She waited until he came home from work and jumped out at him with a knife.

  While the fat asshole begged for his life, Myra remembers how she told him that she was no longer Lenore. She was now Myra, the one who was resurrected. She took her time, carving the bastard up before leaving another knife with his girlfriend’s fingerprints at the scene.

  Everything had gone according to plan, until she found herself confronting her biological mother one night. She had tracked down the bitch who had abandoned her, confessing her crimes. After the confession, she realized it had been a mistake. Her mother said she was going to the police. She left her with no choice. Her mother had to die to keep everything covered up.