Open Season (Alex Delaware #40)

Chapter 9

Chapter

9

The elevator ride was silent, both women pressed together in a corner, still avoiding eye contact.

Milo led the way to the medium-sized interview room he’d set up twenty minutes ago. Small table in the middle, two chairs facing two others. Bottled water and napkins on the tabletop.

Fifteen minutes ago, he’d sniffed the air, left, and returned with a can of citrus air freshener that he used liberally.

Stress-sweat had given way to orange blossoms. For the most part.

“Smell okay to you?”

I said, “Put it down to atmosphere.”

He laughed. “Any psych data on that? Which smells get people to tell the truth?”

“Forget it.”

He laughed again and looked at the water bottles. “I could get snacks from one of the machines but probably not, huh? The body-conscious generation and all that.”

Gazing up at the ceiling, he frowned. Acoustical tiles alternated with fluorescent panels. “Wish it was softer.”

“Why the special treatment?” I said.

“Because…hell, I don’t know why…been thinking of Marissa. Barely making it but trying so hard, she gets snuffed out and dumped like garbage. For all I know, these two are gonna be prone to the same mistakes…or maybe I’m just getting protective in my old age.”

I thought: You were born protective.

—

Now, settled at the table, Tori and Bethany opened their water bottles, drank, kept their heads down.

Milo said, “Again, thanks for coming. First off, I want to reassure you that there’s no serial killer lurking in your neighborhoods. I can’t give you too many details but Marissa’s death was likely an overdose.”

“Of what?” said Tori Burkholder.

“We don’t know yet.”

“That makes no sense, sir. Like I told you, she didn’t use anything.”

Generally Milo’s stingy about giving out details. This time, he said, “Someone may have overdosed her without her knowing.”

“Who?”

“Our most likely suspect is a man named Paul O’Brien.”

No response.

Milo said, “Never heard of him?”

“Never.”

“Never.”

“In any event, he’s been taken care of and is no threat to anyone else. So the name doesn’t ring a bell? Maybe someone Marissa mentioned casually?”

Tori and Bethany looked at each other. Shook their heads.

He showed them the photo of O’Brien and Marissa.

Bethany gaped and stuck out her tongue. “Why would she do that? He looks gross.”

Tori said, “Where was this taken?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out. Any ideas?”

“No, sir.”

Bethany said, “ Not Marissa’s type.”

I said, “What type was that?”

“Actually,” said Tori, “Marissa didn’t have a type. She swore off.”

“Swore off guys.”

“Guys, relationships.”

“No boyfriends at all?”

“Not for years.” She studied the photo. “He’s like…hanging over her. Like he thinks he owns her.”

“Maybe he’s the producer,” said Bethany.

“You think? We told her it was probably bogus.”

“You know Marissa. When she gets an idea.”

Milo said, “Beth and Yoli told us she’d talked about meeting a producer.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tori. “Like…a few weeks ago. Said he was straight up with her, admitted it wouldn’t be big-budget or union-scale but he might be able to use her.”

Milo said, “What kind of movie?”

“She didn’t say.”

Bethany drew the photo nearer and studied it. “Maybe he slipped something into her Sea Breeze. She looks kind of out of it.”

Tori studied the image. “Definitely. Bastard. ”

Milo said, “What else did Marissa say about this producer?”

“Just that she’d met him and that they were going to talk again.”

“Where’d she meet him?”

“No idea.”

“When?”

“Maybe a few weeks ago?”

Bethany said, “Like three? Four? We didn’t take it seriously.”

Tori said, “We asked her, ‘Don’t you think it could be bogus?’ She said she had a good feeling about it so we didn’t bug her. We didn’t want to make her feel bad.”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway,” said Bethany. “She’d just be mad at us and still do her thing.”

“Strong-willed,” said Milo.

“That sounds too—like she was pushy but she wasn’t.”

Tori said, “She just had her own ideas.”

She took another glance at the photo. “Gross. Got to be the Sea Breeze because that’s all she drank unless they didn’t have cranberry juice and then she’d just do the grapefruit part. And only one per, that was her rule.”

I said, “One drink per party.”

“They weren’t parties,” said Tori. “They were openings.”

“Of…”

“Boutiques, clubs, restaurants, whatever. Marissa was on a list. She got us on it, too, but we never went without her.”

I said, “What kind of list?”

“You get an email from a company called BeThere.com,” said Tori.

Bethany said, “Marissa called it the hot girls list. People wanting faces at their events.”

Milo said, “For atmosphere.”

“Exactly,” said Bethany. “We didn’t like it much. Felt like props.”

Tori said, “We didn’t feel it, you know? It got boring real fast so we stopped and put it on spam.”

I said, “Marissa kept going.”

“She liked it.” Deep sigh.

I said, “You never saw this guy at any of the openings?”

“No way,” said Bethany. “He’s not what they want. For girls they want you with a face, for guys it’s famous or super-rich.”

“Situation like that,” I said, “you could get hassled.”

“Oh sure, we got hit on all the time,” said Tori, “but that’s guy-nature, you have to know how to smile them away.”

“It never got messy,” said Bethany. “We know our thing.”

Tori said, “Talk to the hand, walk to nowhere land. Also there was always plenty of security and to be honest, the old rich guys were kind of cute. Winking and making jokes. Not taking it seriously, know what I mean?”

Bethany said, “Like it was a game. Some old rich guy would be like ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ and maybe you’d listen to him for a minute. Then you’d like give him a nice smile and move on.”

Milo said, “How’d Marissa get on the list?”

Dual shrugs.

Tori said, “Maybe something she saw online or in Variety ? I really don’t know.”

Bethany said, “Could be Variety, it’s stupid but she’d buy it because she wanted to act and sometimes they’d have cattle calls. I looked at one of her copies once, this Mr. Hollywood column, really dumb.”

Milo said, “The acting scene.”

“She was always into it. In high school she tried out for plays but she never got parts because she had learning problems—had trouble memorizing lines. So they put her on the stage crew.”

Tori said, “She cried so much about that.”

Bethany said, “She really, really did. But then she got over it. And into it. Being in the crew. She did lighting and was pretty good at it.”

I said, “That didn’t stop her acting ambitions.”

Bethany said, “That’s exactly what it was. Ambitions. This…wanting…trying…putting out so much energy even though you’re not getting anywhere. One time she told me, ‘I’m on a treadmill, Nee, but treadmills can be good exercise for you.’?”

She began to cry.

Tori hugged her. Bethany’s head lowered to Tori’s shoulder.

Milo held up a napkin. Tori took it and dabbed her friend’s eyes.

“Marissa was so sweet,” she said. “She liked taking care of the old people, it really made her feel good. We’d say why don’t you do more of that, like become a nurse or something, you’re great at it. But she was like I’m not ready to give up my passion. I need flexibility for cattle calls.”

Bethany said, “I’m like why would you want to think of yourself as a cow? But I didn’t say it, I just thought it.”

I said, “She get any parts?”

Tori said, “Nothing with lines, just a few crowd scenes. She’d get like a hundred bucks and the on-lot catering, which she said was incredible. But she wouldn’t eat the catering because she didn’t want to look bloated just in case someone noticed her.”

“Like a producer.”

“Anyone who could help her. Hey, maybe that’s where she met him, a cattle call.”

Bethany said, “Maybe. He’s nothing but a lot of bull.”

Weak smile from her friend.

Milo said, “Those openings. How often did she attend them?”

Tori said, “When we were still going it was like…every month and a half, two months.”

“When did you guys stop?”

“After like three times,” said Bethany. “We all have full-time jobs, need to chill at the end of the day, and that was not chilling.”

I said, “Hard work.”

Tori said, “You come home after a full day’s work and then you have to get dressed up, put on full makeup, drive over there, stand in line, and give them your name to prove you’re on the list. Then once you’re inside you can’t eat because you could get a stain on your dress. You could drink but not too much because you’re there to look hot and not lose control.”

“Props,” said Bethany, shaking her head. “First time it was kind of fun. Chanel on Rodeo. We saw George Clooney and his wife. Then it got boring and took up too much chill-time.”

I said, “Marissa kept enjoying it.”

“Not the thing itself,” said Tori. “She enjoyed thinking she might meet someone who could help her.”

More tears.

When they subsided, I said, “What else can you tell us about Marissa?”

“She grew up pretty religious. Was pretty but her mother dressed her really plain. When her mother was living, they went to church.”

I said, “When did her mother pass?”

“Like…five years ago. Right after graduation. She was a nice lady, Mrs. French. Audra. She worked as a hostess at a restaurant, that’s what Marissa grew up eating. What her mother brought home.”

“Her dad—”

“He died when she was a baby, she said she had no memory of him.”

Milo said, “We need to contact her family. We’ve been told about an aunt.”

Tori said, “That’s the only person we know. She’s in…I think Stockton. Wherever that is. Don’t know her name, just that she’s one of you.”

“A police officer?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyone else?”

“Uh-uh.”

I said, “Marissa didn’t know her dad.”

“Nope,” said Bethany. “Maybe that’s why she really didn’t like guys. Said she didn’t trust them. That’s why it’s crazy. Trusting him. ”

“Bet you she was shining him on,” said Tori. “Wanting to see if he could help her and if she found out he couldn’t, she would’ve walked. If he hadn’t O.D.’d her, she could’ve totally controlled the situation. So what’s going to happen to him?”

Milo said, “It won’t be a happy ending.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Bethany McGonigal. “Bad things should happen to bad people.”

—

We walked them down the stairs and out to the street, watched as they hurried to the visitors lot.

“Nice kids,” he said. “Too bad I didn’t learn anything from them.”

I said, “The part about an absent father could’ve made her vulnerable to O’Brien. Same for what they told us about Marissa distancing herself from real relationships.”

“How so?”

“Dealing with people takes practice.”

“She got rusty.”

“That plus ambition could’ve clouded her judgment. And her going it alone, without her friends, meant there was no one to look for danger signs. And there was plenty to worry about. This wasn’t an impulsive thing on O’Brien’s part. Her clothes and purse were at his place but her phone wasn’t. Maybe he confiscated it early on and wanted to cut off any escape route. Or he tossed it after she passed out to avoid being connected with her. Either way, she was way in over her head.”

“Evil,” he said. “Even without her phone, I can get her call history. Problem is, with O’Brien dead, none of it really matters. I’ll write him up as the likely suspect but it’ll just be notes in a file.”

“O’Brien, on the other hand, remains a whodunit and Petra wants you involved.”

“She was being nice,” he said. “No way the boss is gonna allow me to get involved with a Hollywood case.”

—

At the station door, I said, “One question. Why’d you give the girls O’Brien’s name?”

“I figured maybe they’d go all social with it and it’d bring in a tip about the last party and that might clarify both cases. That’s what I texted Petra about. She said sure, go for it.”

He rubbed his face. “Okay, thanks as always, sorry it hasn’t been profound. Go and enjoy hearth and home while I search for a cop in Stockton I can make sad.”

Quick pat on the back. He’s turned dismissing me into an art form.

I smiled and walked away.

—

Robin had waited up for me and ordered take-out sushi.

Slow, quiet dinner on the front terrace, Blanche stretched on the floor to my right, waiting patiently for bits of culinary goodwill.

The air smelled of pine and jasmine. The same stars that had pocked the sky near the station were larger and brighter, freed from the harassment of city lights.

“Pretty night,” I said.

“I was going to suggest we eat by the fishpond but given the menu it seemed in poor taste.”

I laughed and kissed her.

She said, “Wasabi snog. So what have you been doing all day?”

I told her.

She said, “Poor girl, that is incredibly sad and disgusting. I get Milo’s frustration about no final justice. Though when you get down to it, I guess justice is an abstraction.”

I said, “Abstractions keep us civilized.”

She looked at me. “You say much with few words. Yet another reason.”

“For what?”

“Some serious horseradish romance.” She demonstrated.

I said, “That wasn’t in the least bit abstract.”