The Biggest Story in Hollywood #4
“Right.” Bex made a quick note. “If what Ashleigh told us holds up, Chad was hot and bothered about Ramona being missing because it could mess up his plans. If he knew this documentary footage could get out there, or Sloan did, there’s no telling what they’d do.”
“It’s possible,” Sam said. “The clip Kessler showed us implicates Sloan, not so much Chad. It might be a hit to Chad’s reputation, but that’s what publicists are for. Leading men have done worse and kept working. Is there really anything like motive here?”
“I don’t know. I guess if word of the documentary got back to Chad or Sloan, what I’d expect to see is lawsuits, not an elaborate scheme to kidnap Ramona or something.
We know Sloan drove her home from the studio parking lot, but are we supposed to think he locked her in a dark room after that? To what end?”
Sam tapped on the steering wheel, thinking.
“We know more now about why Ramona feels responsible for what happened to Juliette. What if the first thing Macie told us is the most important to focus on? They came to us worried about Ramona feeling distressed about Juliette’s death.
Archie had been around, reminding her of the old days.
Colin saw Ramona watching tape, taking notes.
What happened to Juliette was a gut punch, and Ramona’s been preoccupied with it lately, right after she lost her friendship with Christian to an ugly argument.
Then Chad and Sloan are in her studio. Maybe it all got to be too much. ”
Bex pressed her hand to her forehead. “I was thinking when Kessler told us what happened that it might be the biggest story in Hollywood. I’d hate it if the story ended with Ramona taking her own life.”
Sam’s phone started to ring. Frankie again. She tapped the truck’s display screen to put the audio through the sound system.
“Finally.” Frankie’s voice was more than the ordinary amount of sharp. It made Sam’s scalp tingle.
“What is it?”
“Vic and I have been cleaning up loose ends. There were a couple more people on the list from Ramona’s agent.
We called them, but nothing useful came from that.
Then I was reviewing everything with Vic about Ramona’s timeline.
You guys have the last time anyone saw or spoke to Ramona at around midnight on Friday.
She got into a car with Sloan in the StudioHonor parking garage, where they’d just been dropped off by the location vans that drove them down from Mount Baldy. ”
“That’s right,” Bex said. “And?”
“Vic and I agreed that everything alleged on the timeline should be confirmed by at least one source, if possible. My thought was that we had Piper alleging Ramona left the parking garage with Sloan, but I wanted to figure out another person to talk to in order to confirm that as a fact. I had Vic call Piper to ask her for a name. But that call didn’t go how we expected. ”
“Because?”
“Piper didn’t see Ramona get into Sloan’s car with him.”
“She told us she did!” Sam said.
“Vic says Piper told you guys it happened, not that she saw it. Splitting hairs, I know, but Piper was just trying to tell you everything she could think of that would help. It didn’t occur to her that she needed to physically witness Ramona climbing into Sloan’s car with her eyeballs.”
“How did she know it happened?” Sam asked.
“She overheard Chad say something like, ‘Ro, you can ride with Sloan.’”
“But someone must have seen Ramona leave,” Sam insisted. Her armpits had gone slick with sweat. She forced herself to take a deep breath and loosen her grip on the steering wheel.
“Put a pin in that,” Frankie said. “Since Vic and I don’t have Ramona confirmed in the parking garage by anyone, much less by two sources, I called a woman I know at the studio who’s a tech PA for The Howling and asked her if she could get me access to the van manifests.”
“What’s that?” Bex asked.
“You know what it is. When you shoot on location, there’s someone like me checking you into and out of transportation. They’ve got a clipboard or a tablet with the van manifest.”
“Oh, right.”
“Here’s the problem. The van manifest should have shown Ramona boarding a van on the mountain and getting checked out of it back in the parking garage.
But my friend at Studio-Honor who went to pull the manifest for me couldn’t find it.
It wasn’t where it was supposed to be. And the PA who recorded that manifest, who was responsible for it, resigned three days ago. ”
Bex had stopped writing in her notebook. “What about cameras? In the garage or the van?”
“Maybe, but you’d need a warrant or a subpoena, I think. Vic and I are chasing down what we can. It’s not easy, because The Howling keeps itself buttoned up, but any second now we should be getting a contact sheet for the full crew, including van drivers. We’ll work the phones, don’t worry.”
“Ramona’s parents,” Sam managed to get out over her tight throat. “They should know.”
“I already talked to them. I made Macie put me on a conference call so I could confirm for myself that I was talking to them and getting the information to them to share.”
“We hear you,” Bex said. “All these stupid notes in this stupid notebook, and it doesn’t occur to me to double-check basic facts around the last time anyone saw Ramona?”
Sam shook her head. “No. Listen. With the exception of Archie, everyone who knows we’re doing this has been confident in our talents, and that’s nice, but we are TV detectives.
We are capable of learning, but if we think we have to be perfect to help people, then I guess we’re—I guess we’re Kessler. ”
“Okay. Okay. Frankie, do you think we could get in touch with—”
“Logan. The PA. His name is Logan Widi. He lives in Koreatown. Rents a place on South Kingsley. I’m texting you the address. I think you need to talk to him in person. He’s not returning my calls.”
Sam’s neck was so tight that she could feel it pull in her shoulders when she put her foot on the gas. “We’re in Malibu. It’s more than an hour to Koreatown. Could be two hours in this rain.”
Bex sat up straight. “Don’t worry about it. Sam, turn around up here.”
“I guess I could go over there myself,” Frankie said. “Though I’m not sure he’d open the door to me, versus for two famous actors.”
“I’ve got this,” Bex said. “I can get us there fast.” She started scrolling through her phone. “I’ve just got to call in a favor.”
“Some favor.” Sam smoothed her hand over her hair, tangled from the downwash of the rotors of the helicopter that had just flown them from Malibu to the construction site of a medical office suite a few blocks from Logan Widi’s place in Koreatown.
“It’s too much to go into right now.” Bex was unwinding the silk scarf she’d wrapped around her head.
The rain had stopped, but the sky was foreboding.
Sam assumed it would start up again shortly.
“But when a board member of SoFi really, really loves his wife and wants her serenaded on her birthday with a medley of her favorites by her favorite singer, it’s almost always better to do it in exchange for a future favor instead of for cash.
Board members of finance companies have helicopters. ”
A few moments later, the map on Sam’s phone delivered them to a pale yellow stucco house with the same collection of succulents and yucca plants that every house on the block had, all fenced in behind vinyl-coated chain-link.
Sam spotted a small dog in the big front window. It was staring at them and trembling.
“Ready?” Bex lifted the latch for the gate.
“It looks like he already knows we’re here.” Sam gestured toward the doorbell camera as the inner door opened, leaving only a security door with ornate metalwork. They closed the gate behind them and stepped up onto the small concrete porch.
“It’s really Sam Farmer and Bex Simon.” A man Sam assumed must be Logan Widi held the dog under one arm.
Its eyes were glazed with cataracts, but its little tail whipped back and forth nonetheless, and its nose wiggled in the air to confirm the presence of visitors. “The TV detectives in the flesh.”
Logan was having a hard time meeting their eyes. Sam couldn’t figure out if he was shy or nervous. She was used to people who didn’t know how to act around celebrities, but Logan was a PA. He ought to have been accustomed to working with talent, even very famous talent.
Of course, he wasn’t meeting them at a studio or shoot, where everyone had a role to play. A woman was missing, and he’d been one of the last people to see her. He’d left his job, and the timing did not look good. Logan Widi had excellent reasons to be nervous.
They followed him inside to an open-concept combined living and dining area.
There was an opening to the back, probably to the kitchen and a postage-stamp backyard.
“Have a seat. I’d offer you something to drink, but my wife is taking a nap, and our new baby is in her bouncer on the kitchen floor.
She likes to stare at the light fixture in there.
Sometimes it helps her fall asleep. If I go in and get a drink, she’ll wake up, and then my wife will wake up, and everything will be so much worse later.
” The dark circles under Logan’s eyes matched his black T-shirt and hiking pants.
“How old is your baby?” Bex sat down in a leather recliner, while Sam took the end of the burgundy sofa opposite.
The room was pretty. Someone had styled the big wall at one end with a collection of round, carved Mayan calendars in materials ranging from colored stone to painted wood.
There were hand-woven round, shallow baskets interspersed between the calendars, echoing the shape with texture.