Hollywood Homicide: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Read online

  The events were tragic and still left me feeling empty inside. It had taken years for the department to finally honor my dad, displaying his name plaque during a memorial ceremony at the Police Administration Building and also honoring him with a star on the sidewalk along with other fallen officers outside Hollywood Station.

  I stood up with Pearl, took his arm, and we continued down the sidewalk. The evening now seemed even colder, a sudden chill washing over me. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself as we walked.

  “You want to talk about it?” Pearl finally asked.

  A frosty breath of air escaped my lungs. “I’m not sure I know what to say.” I took a moment, drawing in the night air, and trying to find the words to express what I was feeling. We stopped and I turned to him. “I think…maybe I’m going downhill. I’m feeling a little out of control.”

  “Because of what happened tonight?”

  I shook my head. “Remember that FBI agent, Joe Dawson, we worked with a few months back?” He nodded. “Joe said something to me about blue eyed-soul. He said that despite all the evil you see in the world, as a cop you start out wanting to do the right thing and make the world a better place. But the ugliness and sorrow of the job eventually sneaks up on you and steals your soul. It leaves you feeling hollow inside.”

  Pearl took my hands. His soft, brown eyes radiated understanding. “We’ve all experienced some of what you’re going through, Kate. Sometimes it just takes a little time to process everything, find a way to file it away, and move on.”

  I nodded, turned, and we began walking up the street again. Dozens of images of the cases I’d worked over the years swam through my mind.

  There was a young woman named Cassie Reynolds, a former prostitute, who had learned the truth about a homicide victim who she’d thought was her father and paid the ultimate price. I again saw a killer named Myra who’d engaged in a bloody killing spree before she herself was murdered by a man she thought loved her. Images of a Hollywood power couple and an Olympic athlete, all betrayed and murdered, filtered through my mind. Then there was a madman known as The Artist who made the other killings pale in comparison to the atrocities he’d committed. A couple of other recent cases surfaced and then skittered away until I again remembered the victims The Sadist had left behind.

  The hollow feeling I’d told Pearl about came back, pushing my thoughts farther into the black hole that was my life. I turned to him, expressing what I’d been contemplating for a few weeks. “I’m thinking about…quitting.” He stopped and met my eyes. “The department…I’m not sure I can go on.”

  “Maybe you should take some more time off.”

  I shook my head. I’d recently returned from a leave and knew what he proposed wouldn’t help. “It’s not just the job, Pearl. It’s everything…my relationships haven’t…”

  I felt my eyes tearing up as I thought about my past relationships, including a failed marriage, the death of Jack Bautista, and then Buck McCade. I’d met Buck on a leave of absence when the job became overwhelming, but his mentally ill ex-wife had shown up, claiming that he’d fathered a child by her a few months ago. I didn’t know if it was true. All I knew was that I couldn’t continue a relationship under those circumstances.

  I regained some composure and went on. “…my relationships…they haven’t ended well.” I forced myself to smile. “And now I’m living with my mother and she’s…”

  Pearl grinned, exposing the gap in his front teeth, as I searched in vain to find the words to describe what my mother was going through. “No need to explain,” he said. “I’ve got a few relatives of my own that are problematic.”

  We walked on for a minute before Pearl said, “I heard a rumor about you the other day.”

  I forced another smile. “Whatever it was, I didn’t do it.”

  He regarded me for a moment. “Something about a special unit that’s being formed.”

  “What kind of unit?”

  “Not really sure. All I know is they handle some difficult cases.”

  I laughed. “You ever worked a homicide that wasn’t difficult?”

  He shook his head. We stopped and he took my hands again. “I understand what you’re going through, Kate. I don’t have any answers, except to tell you that you’re a damn fine cop just like your daddy. You can either honor that and his memory and try to find a way to continue the work, or walk away knowing that you can’t give anything more. It’s your decision. No one can make it for you.”

  My lungs deflated, releasing a cloud of chilled air. I brushed a tear and said, “Thanks for listening.”

  SIX

  I got home a little before eleven and found my friends, Natalie Bump and Mo Simpson, on my mother’s doorstep. Mo rode a pink motor scooter around town that I saw was parked at the curb. My friends had their hairbrushes out and were working on what Mo said was a bad case of helmet hair.

  Mo then stared at me like I was an alien species that had just landed on earth. “You get into some kinda fight tonight?”

  “Looks like some dirty lumpfish put the lumps on you,” Natalie added.

  My friends never hesitate to say exactly what’s on their minds. They’d started a private detective business called, Sistah Snoop, a few months back; the perfect enterprise for a duo that loved meddling into other people’s business.

  Mo was big, black, and assertive—as in someone who was known to put a few lumps on anyone who crossed her path, sometimes whether they needed it or not.

  Natalie was her opposite, British, blonde, and in her early twenties. My gorgeous friend had a colorful vocabulary that was unique and explicit, something that she learned during a rough upbringing by her truck-driving father.

  “I was just in a little scuffle tonight,” I lied. “Nothing to worry about.”

  The truth was, despite my near-death encounter a few hours ago, I felt nothing. The evening’s activities already seemed like a distant memory. I knew that was about as far from normal as a person could get, but I felt powerless to do anything about it. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do anything about it. Feeling numb was my new normal.

  Mo looked me up and down again. “Honey, I seen a few scuffles. You look like you went a few rounds with Mike Tyson.”

  “But she’s still got both ears,” Natalie said. “Musta just been one of them Hollywood whack jobs.”

  I ignored their comments and invited them into Mom’s small house where Bernie and Bubba greeted us. Bernie, my brown and black furry canine partner, is about a hundred pounds of muscle and attitude. My big dog’s also got a healthy dose of sexual wanderlust, having sired Bubba a few months back after a romp with a black lab named Thelma. I’d recently given my mother custody of Bubba, hoping that he might be a stabilizing influence in a life that seemed to be unraveling day by day.

  I looked around Mom’s house, not seeing Miss Daisy anywhere. I decided that she was probably already in bed. I showed my friends into the living room after finding a bottle of wine in the fridge.

  As the dogs shared a chew toy, I retrieved some wineglasses, served the wine, and asked, “So what brings you two out this time of night?”

  “Stopped off at Denny’s for some of their strawberry Nicky Minaj booty pie,” Mo explained, slapping a butt cheek. “It’s the flavor of the month.”

  Natalie must have seen my confusion. “You gotta have the buns, hun.” She’d said the words like they were something out of a hip hop song.

  I had no clue what they were talking about, something that must have been obvious to both of my friends.

  “Never mind,” Mo said. She looked at Natalie. “I’ve decided Kate’s culturally clueless.”

  “You do need to get out more,” Natalie agreed. “There’s more to life than just crazy stalkers and dead bodies.”

  I exhaled, chewed on the edge of a chipped nail. “You’re probably right about that.”

  Mo’s dark eyes narrowed on me again. “We were on our way home and thought we’d better check on you,
see how you’re holding up since you moved.”

  Before moving in with my mom I’d been living with my friends at an estate called, Ravenswood, a Tudor mansion in the foothills of Hollywood. Natalie and Mo still had an inexpensive short term lease on the property until probate was settled.

  The previous owner of the mansion, an actor named Russell Van Drake, had gone missing under suspicious circumstances. His one-time girlfriend, Shirley Welch, also an actress, had been found buried on the grounds of the property a few weeks ago. The once cold murder case had been reopened with Van Drake being the primary suspect, even though he’d also disappeared around the same time as the actress.

  “I’m just trying to take care of Mom,” I explained to my friends. “She’s…” I searched for the words to explain what was happening with my mother, but came up empty. I finally said, “She’s a little under the weather.”

  Mo eyed Natalie. “Didn’t you say that you ran into Miss Daisy at the store the other day?”

  Natalie nodded, met my eyes. “Your mum was…” She glanced at Mo, then back at me. “She acted like she didn’t know me and seemed like a different person. Tell ya the truth, she was a bit barmy.”

  I sighed, hugged my sides. “Mom is…I think the term for what’s going on with her is something called a dissociative personality disorder.”

  Mo glanced over at Natalie. “Her mom’s got a split personality, thinks she’s somebody else.”

  “You mean like Jekyll and Hyde?” Natalie said, looking over at me. “Is your mum gonna grab a knife off the kitchen counter one of these nights, try and whack ya?”

  I rubbed Bernie’s muzzle. “I hope not.” Mom had no history of violence, other than slugging a cop in New York after being arrested during a nude peace demonstration a few months ago. “Mom’s been calling herself Rose, someone she thinks had an affair with President Clinton when he was in office.”

  Mo laughed and slapped a knee. “You’re kidding us. Isn’t she the same woman who thought she had sex with Richard Nixon?”

  I nodded. “Apparently she’s got a thing for ex-presidents. At least this one’s still alive.”

  Natalie leaned forward, her interest in the conversation apparent. “Did your mum think she did it with the president in the oval office? Did he have some cigars and…”

  I cut her off. “I purposely didn’t ask for all the intimate details. There are some things I’d rather not hear about.”

  Natalie looked at Mo. “We’d better investigate this, make sure Kate’s safe around Rose, the presidential ho.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I think I can take care of it myself.”

  “What’s the latest with the cowboy?” Mo asked, changing the subject.

  Her reference to the cowboy was because Buck McCade was originally from Texas, sometimes wore a Stetson, and still spoke with a southern drawl.

  “I’m not sure about our relationship. I know I can’t deal with his ex-wife stalking me.”

  “I heard she showed up after your dad’s badge ceremony,” Natalie said. “And she was dressed like something out of that old movie, Rosemary’s Baby, pushing a black stroller.”

  I brushed a hand through my frizzy hair, thinking that I should make an appointment with my brother Robin, who’s a hairdresser. “That’s pretty much the way things went down.”

  “Do you know if he’s the father of the baby?” Mo asked.

  “He claims the child’s from a casual affair his ex-wife had but…”

  “Maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt,” Natalie suggested. “He’s hot and it’s not like you’ve got a lot of other options.”

  My friends are what I call tact-challenged, something they demonstrated almost daily, usually at my expense. “I just don’t know if I can continue a relationship with someone who’s got a crazy ex and possibly a child involved.”

  “Maybe Buck needs to go on one of them TV shows, get his DNA tested, and prove he’s not the daddy,” Mo said.

  “He could also take a lie detector test,” Natalie suggested. “If he’s a lying loser then you can drop-kick him into the gutter and look for somebody else.”

  I sipped my wine, set the glass down. “To tell you the truth I’m not sure I’m cut out for relationships. Nothing ever seems to work out.” I met Natalie’s beautiful hazel eyes. “How are things between you and Sonny?” Natalie’s boyfriend was something called a fantasy broker. His specialty was arranging exotic experiences based upon almost any imaginable desire.

  “He got us a couple of them bird suits.”

  I laughed. “You mean, like some kind of cartoon character?”

  She shook her head. “We’re gonna jump off the top of a mountain, fly through the air. Sonny’s working out all the details.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “It sounds crazy,” Mo chimed in. “Only way you’d get me in one of them suits is to put the girls in a tourniquet.”

  I was thinking there wasn’t a big enough bird suit or tourniquet in existence to contain Mo’s giant breasts, as Natalie said to her, “Maybe you should go with us, try and launch the twins into orbit.”

  “The twins are scared of heights,” Mo said. “What about you, Kate?”

  I laughed. “I’m afraid my twins are shopping in the junior department. And I’ve already got enough problems, let alone dressing up like a bird and throwing my body off a mountain.”

  Mo yawned, stretching out lime green spandex that was probably suffocating the twins. “I think we all need to go to dinner soon.” She glanced over at Natalie. “Kate’s in need of some serious sistah therapy.”

  “I read an article the other day about the need to get in touch with your inner vagina,” Natalie said to me. “It’s all about using your sexual energy to change your life.”

  Now it was my turn to yawn. “Thanks, but I’m afraid my sexual energy and everything else is running on empty. Send me a text and we’ll see about getting together.”

  I was walking my friends to the door when Mom came into the room from the hallway. She was wearing a robe and seemed disoriented. Bernie came over and sniffed her. Maybe it was Mom’s altered personality but something about her smile reminded me of Miley Cyrus.

  “You girls needn’t rush off,” Mom said in a voice that was different from her usual tone. It was higher pitched and girly. “Let’s all have a nightcap.”

  “Sorry Mom,” I said, opening the front door. “It’s getting late, maybe another time.”

  “Nonsense,” Mom said, holding onto the door. She looked at my friends. “I’ve been busy with Bill lately. Would you like to hear about it?”

  “Of course,” Natalie said. “I wanna hear about what he does with cigars and other things.”

  I pushed her and Mo through the open doorway. “Another time.” I closed the door and turned to my mother. “I’m going to walk the dogs and then head for bed.”

  “You’re no fun,” Mom, or Rose, said in her altered voice. “I don’t know why I let you move in with me.”

  I sighed, went over and got the dog’s leashes from a chair. “Maybe that can be remedied.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m getting a little tired of your attitude, young lady.”

  Young lady? Maybe Mom thought this was the nineties, Bill Clinton was president, and I was still a child. “Just forget what I said.” I closed the door as she went on, telling me that I was a spoiled brat.

  I walked the dogs through the yard, reminding them, “You’re lucky you’re dogs. No presidents. No cigars. And no multiple personality disorders.”

  Ten minutes later, I walked Bernie and Bubba back to the front door and found it was locked. I pounded on the door for ten minutes, not getting a response. I finally slumped down on the steps, looked at the dogs, and said, “Maybe we should all just turn ourselves into the pound.”

  SEVEN

  I spent the next several days on paid administrative leave as required by the department’s policy regarding officer involv
ed shootings. The time off did nothing to improve my relationship with mom, or Rose, as she was now calling herself. She had kept me and the dogs locked out of the house until two in the morning the night Natalie and Mo had come by. It had been an ugly scene, with me pounding on the front door for almost an hour before she finally opened up. By then, Rose was drunk and claiming that I was interfering in her life. She also went into a rage, telling me that I was not her biological daughter and didn’t understand her true feelings.

  Her comments hurt me deeply. Mom had adopted me when I was a baby but hadn’t told me that until a few months ago. My conception had occurred when my father and an actress named Judie Crawford had gotten together before my dad and Mom married. After my father’s death at the hands of Judie’s jealous ex-boyfriend, Ryan Cooper, Mom had kept the truth from me, fearing that Cooper would also come after me.

  While I knew that my mother’s recent behavior was a form of mental illness, and possibly even guilt over keeping my past hidden from me all those years, I had trouble processing that after what she’d said. I decided that Mom needed to see a therapist; I just wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. I even entertained the thought of attending some of the sessions with her if we could somehow find common ground. I felt depressed but also angry about the way she’d treated me after I’d agreed to move in with her to help her through her emotional crisis. As Mo might have said, this was just another weather front in the shit storm that was my life.

  Bernie and I got to work a little after eight the morning after my administrative leave ended. When I arrived at the station, I saw that my new partner, Harvey Gluck, was at his desk across from mine. I stowed my purse in the desk drawer as Bernie settled into his customary spot at my feet. After saying good morning, I realized that Harvey, who harbored aspirations of becoming an actor someday, had fixed his eyes on me but hadn’t said anything.

  “Don’t tell me I have a wart on the end of my nose,” I said, meeting his green eyes that I knew were the result of colored contact lenses.