The Last Cheerleader

“The key word is suspect,” I replied. “You have absolutely no evidence that I had anything to do with any of those murders. You can’t possibly have, because I didn’t commit them.”

He shrugged and took a long swallow of the wine. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I just figured if I came here tonight you might feel more comfortable about telling the truth.”

“Then you’ve wasted your time,” I said, “because I already have.” I took a sip of the Chardonnay. “I honestly don’t know who killed Tony and Arnold. Or Craig.”

“But you know something you aren’t saying. I’d bet my badge on it.”

“Then I hope your badge doesn’t mean too much to you.”

“It means everything. I wouldn’t bet it if I weren’t sure.”

“I think dinner’s just about ready,” I said, looking at my watch and changing the subject. “I don’t cook much, so I hope you like Poor Man’s Lasagna.”

He smiled. “Poor Man’s Lasagna? What’s that?”

“You cook some pasta, then layer it in a casserole dish with tomato sauce, garlic, sour cream, cream cheese and Monterey Jack. Takes about twenty minutes to pull it all together.”

“Sounds absolutely wonderful. A sure way to harden the arteries.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Not at all. It’s my favorite kind of food.”

A man after my own heart—if only he weren’t here to tear it out and roast it on a spit. I’d have to tread carefully with Detective Dan Rucker.

We were having after-dinner coffee, on the deck with Bailey’s Irish Cream, my excuse for an easy dessert. It had grown dark, and I’d plugged in the little fairy lights around the railing. The night air was warm, even balmy, and the ocean waves were soft and muted. Thanks to the Santa Ana winds, the sky was clear now, and the moon illuminated the shoreline all the way down to Palos Verdes.

“There was a small piece on the evening news about Craig Dinsmore,” Dan said, leaning back lazily in his chair, his feet on the middle railing. “They said he’d once been on the track to stardom, but he’d fallen off track along the way. A ‘friend’ they interviewed said it was alcoholism, but that Dinsmore had recently cleaned up and was fighting his way back. The anchor ended up by saying in somber tones, ‘…only to end up dead in a seedy motel room.”’

“They’d make the most of that, of course. It’s a great story for the media.”

“Is any of it true?” he asked.

“Most of it, more or less. He did clean up and I’ve been negotiating a good contract for his current book. I’m not so sure about the next one. I saw a manuscript at Craig’s motel room, just before the El Segundo police came crashing in. It wasn’t the kind of book he told me he was writing.”

“What kind was it?”

“One of those Hollywood tell-alls,” I said. “Nothing especially new or original.” I remembered that the manuscript had seemed familiar to me, and suddenly I thought I knew why. Not for certain, but I had my suspicions. I’d have to go online and see if I was right.

“What about Tony Price?” Dan asked. “He was a best-seller, right?”

“Not if you want to be grammatical. A best-seller is a book. An author is a ‘best-selling author.’ Or to be even more grammatical, a ‘writer of best-selling books.”’

“I stand corrected,” he said, smiling. “Does it make a real difference?”

“Not unless you’ve got a tiny little editor sitting on your shoulder and you get bugged by those things.”

He shook his head. “Living with you must be a challenge.”

“Well, no one’s ever had to come up to that challenge,” I said, smiling sweetly, “so no problem.” Then, sobering, I added, “Except, of course, poor Arnold.”

Rucker was silent a moment. Then he said, “To get back to Tony Price, I would imagine that losing him will put a dent in your income.”

“Eventually,” I said casually, with more bravado than honesty. “There are still royalties to come in on his last book, and option money if a movie is made from it.” I took a sip of my coffee and shrugged.

“And Craig Dinsmore?” he asked. “He wasn’t making any money for you at all?”

I shook my head. “Not much lately. A few royalties from his older best-selling books. Some from foreign sales. The book that’s at the publisher’s should do quite well, though. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Okay. But while you’re wondering about that, enlighten me, please, about the Chinese dildos.”

He seemed surprised. “You recognized them as that?”

“Sure. I have a couple of gay authors and they’re a hot item in West Hollywood right now. Word goes around at parties, so yes, I’ve heard about them. Ancient Chinese sex artifacts, quite expensive. They were the murder weapons, right?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” he answered, looking away.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You may take it as that, but like I said—”

“You’re not at liberty to say. But you know, I’ve been thinking. It’d take a lot of strength to bash someone in the forehead with one of those. Hard enough to kill them, anyway. And here we’ve got three someones. It would almost have to be a man.”

“Or a very strong woman,” he said, looking at me. “Someone who works out a lot, for instance.”

“Ah…so you are here on a fishing expedition. You think I killed them.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’re not saying much of anything. So what can you tell me? This little ête-à-tête has to be mutual, or I’m clamming up.”

“You’ve already clammed up,” he said. “You haven’t told me a thing I can use to find the killer.”

“Well, that shouldn’t bother you too much, since you half suspect that I’m it.”

“You think it’s only half?” he asked, looking me intently in the eye. It was hard to break away because my breath caught and my hands were beginning to shake.

“Are you married?” I asked, setting my coffee cup down carefully.

“Nope. Never have been.”

“Engaged?”

“Nope.”

“Gay?”

“Not so far as I can tell.” He grinned.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying you’re attainable?”

He laughed softly. “I’d like to think I am.”

“Hmm. So then, about that sex stuff. Can we get down to it now?”

The grin widened. “I thought you’d never ask.”

For my part, I’d ventured into this with one thing in mind—well, almost one thing—to get information out of Dan Rucker. But we didn’t talk at all, aside from some rather wild and passionate utterances that would have embarrassed me if I’d had neighbors on the other side of the wall.

He was a pretty good lover, quite skilled in the ways of pleasing a woman. But he still wasn’t my type. And his beard scratched. He turned out to be cleaner, though, than I’d expected—and he still smelled like oranges warming in a noonday sun.

I never did get any information out of him, but never in my life had I felt anything like the way I’d felt with him. It seemed we matched in all ways physical, as if we’d rehearsed a thousand years ago for this moment—corny as that sounds.

When it was over, we both leaned back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling. He was the first to speak. “That was really…different,” he said.

I was lying in a pool of sweat, and only half of it was from the hot Santa Ana winds. I cringed. “Different good? Or different bad?”

He leaned on an elbow and kissed my lips, rubbing his lightly back and forth over mine, and ending at the tip of my nose. “Different like…well, like your Poor Man’s Lasagna.”

I struggled to remember what he’d said about that. Thick? Fatty? Greasy?

No. Absolutely wonderful was what he’d said. I smiled.

“Do you have any orange juice?” he asked.

“Second shelf. Fridge.” I turned on my side and snuggled under the down comforter.

“Well, don’t get up,” he said pointedly. “Let me get it.”

“You’re a prince,” I murmured, yawning.

He swatted me on the ass.

While he rummaged in the kitchen, I thought about what had just happened. Truthfully, waking up in my bed beside Dan Rucker at five after midnight made me feel like the Whore of Babylon. I hadn’t had sex in four years, and the lack of it hadn’t bothered me much. Most of the men I’d been with didn’t know an orgasm from a mild spasm, so the minute I’d get excited they’d let go and then quit on me. Eventually I found my work more thrilling, and it lasted longer, so I focused on that.

Except, of course, for my fixation on Tony. I don’t know what I’d have done if we’d ever made love and it hadn’t turned out well. With no more fantasies in that department, I might have had to settle down in a rocking chair and knit afghans.

The good detective came back with juice for both of us, so I sat up, pulled the sheets up to my neck with one hand and took the drink with the other. He stretched out beside me, leaning back against the headboard. For a few minutes we sipped our juice without talking. It felt really weird, this man in my bed, a man I hardly knew and yet had shared something rather spectacular with.

Staring out at the now-dark ocean—anywhere but into those dreamy liquid eyes that were so much like Paul Newman’s—I sipped my juice and said, “It’s cooling off out there.”

“The Santa Anas are still blowing, though,” he said. “They make me crazy. Always have.”

“Me, too. In fact, I wonder if that’s what happened with Tony, Arnold and Craig. Some random killer crazed by the winds.”

“Who just happens to hit people you’re close to?” he said skeptically.

I sighed. “No, I guess not. But, look, you don’t really think I killed them, do you?”

“You mean, have I changed my mind because we had sex?”

“No, I mean because you wouldn’t have slept with me if you thought I was a killer.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Oh, how the hell do I know!” I said irritably, grabbing my robe and getting out of bed. I crossed over to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror over the sink.

God, I looked awful. Between circles under my eyes from lack of sleep and the matted hair, I looked like an escapee from a Colombian prison.

I started to brush my teeth. “Let’s forget about you for a minute,” I said, spitting. “Does anyone in the LAPD think they could be gay crimes?”

“I’m not sure. Were all three of them gay?”

“Actually, none were, that I knew of. But those dildos…”

“I’m no expert,” he said, coming up behind me and pulling the collar of my robe aside to plant a kiss on my bare shoulder, “but I’ve been told that women use ‘help’ of that sort as much as men. In fact, more.”

I knew that, but hadn’t thought about it in this case. “I just wondered…I guess because I’ve heard that the gay crowd in West Hollywood is into those and Tony used to hang out a lot in West Hollywood. But Arnold? And Craig?” I shook my head. “You must have talked to a few people by now. Neighbors in Tony’s building, friends, maybe even enemies. Are there any you suspect?”

He looked at me in the mirror and raised his eyebrows.

“Other than me,” I said.

He stood beside me and studied his beard, combing it with his fingers. “As for Craig Dinsmore, the LAPD doesn’t have jurisdiction in El Segundo. We may know more about a connection between them when we get the DNA tests and evidence back from Price’s apartment. If there is a connection, we may also be asked to assist with the El Segundo PD’s investigation.”

“There is evidence, then? Something you may be able to arrest someone with?”

He grinned and went back into the bedroom, pulling on his pants and shirt. “I think I’ve said enough. And with very little payoff.”

“Sex with me wasn’t a good payoff?” I called out.

He laughed. “I was actually hoping for more information from you about the three murder victims. But since you ask…” He turned at the door. “I didn’t see sex with you as a payoff. I thought it was more like fun.”

I smiled and pondered that after he left, slipping into a pair of flannel pajama trousers and a sleeveless tee. Then I lay on my bed and listened to the waves crash for a while, until I fell asleep.

It was not to be an easy night, however, and there was more than sweetness and light to come.

I was dreaming about Craig and Arnold and crushed foreheads, Tony and my lost income, when my doorbell rang. I woke with a start and looked at my bedside clock: 1:25 a.m. Not very many people knew where I lived, and none of them would come here at this hour without calling first.

Had the scruffy detective come back for more? Or had he come to arrest me this time?

I drew my silk Chinese robe around me and walked to the front door, turning on a couple of lights along the way. Looking through the peephole I saw a woman blinking in the bright glare of the motion-sensitive light above my front door.

She seemed disheveled and badly dressed, like women I’ve seen on the streets, sleeping in cardboard boxes. I shivered in the cold dampness that blew in from the ocean through a crack I’d left open in a window. I couldn’t imagine what this woman wanted with me, but was doubly cautious because I’d heard from a neighbor that someone had broken into her house recently, and she thought it was “one of the homeless.”

The way she’d said the word homeless was so disparaging, though, I had tended to discount her story and wondered if she’d simply heard a dog in her trash that night. In her circle, a homeless person probably just made for a better story.

“What do you want?” I asked through the closed door.

“I just really need a place to sleep,” the woman said. “Can I come in?”

There was something oddly familiar about her voice, but I couldn’t place it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any extra room,” I said. It was all I could think of. “Have you tried the missions?”

“Please, Mary Beth. Let me at least talk to you.”

It startled me that she’d called me by name. “Who is it?” I called out. “Who are you?”

The woman started to cry. “Mary Beth, it’s me, Lindy. Lindy Lou.”

Lindy Lou? Lindy Lou Trent, from high school? Was it possible?

I opened the door a crack but didn’t take off the chain. “Stand over here where I can see you,” I said.

She did, and I had to admit there was a slight resemblance, maybe in the nose and eyes, but that’s where it ended. Lindy Louise Trent had been my best friend in high school—and at the same time my arch-rival. Lindy had the looks, the money, the personality, and all the boys. While I slaved away on the school paper, she became the most popular cheerleader, the homecoming queen, and the one who got the homecoming king—someone I’d had eyes for but was too shy to go after. Lindy just had to toss her long blond hair, stick out her chest, and boys would follow her anywhere.

“Is that really you?” I asked now, though I could see with every passing moment that it was indeed her. I just couldn’t believe the change that had taken place. Several inches of the roots of her hair were dark, and the blond that was still left was dry and frizzled. Her eyes were wide and staring.

My look must have spoken volumes.

“Please let me come in and sit down, Mary Beth. I’ll tell you everything, but I really just need to sit down.”

She started to sway back and forth alarmingly. I opened the door the rest of the way and reached for her. Putting an arm around her waist, I drew her into the living room and helped her to sit on the couch. She was light as a feather, and shaking so much I had to hold on tight for fear of dropping her.

“Oh, God, that feels so good,” she said, groaning. “Just to sit. You can’t know, Mary Beth. I’ve been walking for miles.”

She wore low-heeled, pointed-toe shoes from a good designer, but when she slipped them off I could see that she wore no stockings, and two of her toes were bleeding.

“For God’s sake, Lindy, let me clean that up for you,” I said. I went to the kitchen and spoke to her from across the breakfast bar as I ran water to get it warm. “Where did you walk from?”

“Downtown L.A.,” she said, her voice shaking. “I mean, I started out there, but then I got a ride to Hollywood. I walked down Sunset Boulevard till I got to the ocean, and then I turned on Pacific Coast Highway and came here.”

I added soap to the bowl of warm water, and a soft dishcloth. “I don’t understand. How did you know where I live?”

“I read a piece about you in the Sunday Los Angeles Times. They said you lived in Malibu, and then I ran into someone who knew you. He gave me your address.”

Warning bells went off. Lindy shows up after all these years—fifteen, to be exact, since high school—and tells me that someone who knows me gave her my address? Who would do that?

For that matter, what were the odds of her “running into someone” who even knew my address? I protect my personal information from almost everyone, as I don’t want agitated authors showing up at my door in the middle of the night. That had happened frequently when I had my office in front of the little adobe house in Hollywood. I didn’t want it to happen here.

“Who was this person?” I asked.

Lindy shook her head. “I can’t remember. I met him at a bar in Hollywood and we got to talking. I told him I’d been wanting to get in touch with you, especially after I read that piece in the paper. Just to tell you how happy I am for your success, you know.”

I’ll bet, I thought suspiciously. Lindy had obviously met with bad times. How much was she here to hit me up for?

I knelt down and began to wash her feet with the soapy water, then dried them carefully. “Leave the shoes off,” I said. “I’ll get a Band-Aid, and I’ve got a pair of socks and some tennies you can have.”

“Thank you, Mary Beth.” Lindy looked around and added with an edge in her voice, “You’re doing very well now, aren’t you?”

I looked up at her and she flushed. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way. It’s just that everything’s turned around for both of us. You were poor and now you’re not. I was…well, I guess you heard that I married Roger Van Court.”

I looked back at her feet and then stood, taking the bowl back to the kitchen. “Yes, I think I must have heard that,” I said vaguely. “It’s been a while. Ten years or so, right? Since you were married?”

“Since right after college,” she said, nodding. “I can’t believe I was that stupid.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Roger Van Court. In fact, my pulse was racing and my hands had begun to shake at the sound of his name. I took a Band-Aid out of a drawer and tried to bring my focus back to Lindy and her plight.

“What’s happened, Lindy Lou?” I asked softly. I applied the Band-Aid, then sat beside her on the couch, my legs crossed in tailor-fashion. It was the way we used to sit when we were teenagers, chatting till all hours of the night. A familiar scene—yet not familiar at all. Now that I could see Lindy more closely, I realized that though we were the same age, thirty-three, she looked closer to fifty. Her face was lined, and I could see now the gray in her dark roots.

My heart broke a little. In high school, Lindy’s long blond hair had always looked sexy and a bit out of control, as if she’d just stepped out of a beauty salon into a warm spring breeze. With her high cheekbones and perfectly proportioned body, she could have been a high-fashion model. I’m sure she would have been hugely successful.

Instead, she’d married Roger Van Court.

There was a time when I might have jealously wished Lindy would end up down and out, but that was only because I never believed, in my wildest dreams, that she would. Though I hadn’t seen her in many years, in my mind she had always been the same Lindy Lou—vivacious, laughing, flirting easily yet harmlessly with the boys—someone I longed to be like but never was.

Suddenly, a part of me evaporated as the real Lindy Lou sat beside me. I had wanted to be like her, but even Lindy wasn’t Lindy anymore. A strange thought flew through my mind. Where did that leave me?

Lindy covered her eyes and began to sob. “Roger threw me out,” she said between loud hiccupping sounds. “Three weeks ago. He changed…he changed the locks…and I couldn’t get back in. To get my things, you know? He closed my bank accounts, too, Mary Beth, and cut off all my credit cards. I didn’t have a thing, and I couldn’t bear to tell any of our friends or ask to borrow money. We live in Pacific Heights now, and people there can be so damn hoitytoity.”

I almost smiled at her use of the old-fashioned phrase. Instead, I just shook my head and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Well, it’s one of the priciest areas in San Francisco, and none of our neighbors would understand in a million years. They’d have it all over town that I was out on the street.”

“Lindy, I don’t get it. What on earth possessed Roger? I thought the two of you must be happy.”

Which wasn’t at all the truth, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that now.

“I thought we were happy at first,” she said, rubbing her eyes. I reached over to an end table for Kleenex and handed her a couple. She dabbed at her eyes and cheeks, then turned her gaze on me. “Mary Beth, I’m so…damn…tired.” She broke down then, gulping back huge, loud sobs.

I took her in my arms and patted her on the back. There but for the grace of God go I? That was something my mother had always said when reminding herself of how blessed she was, just to have food on the table and a light to read by. My mother had worked long hours as a waitress to support herself after my father died, and there wasn’t much to go around. When she died shortly after Pop, her loss left a hole in my heart that no one else has ever been able to fill.

Taking the Kleenex, I dabbed at Lindy’s eyes and held her back from me a foot or so. “Why don’t you take a nice relaxing bath while I put some food on,” I said.

“You don’t have to go to that trouble.”

“Don’t be silly. I haven’t been shopping this week, but I’ll make us some grilled-cheese sandwiches. How’s that? Just like old times.”

Her eyes said it all: This is not like old times.

She came with me to my bedroom, though, and took off her clothes while I drew a warm bath, putting a scented bubble gel in it. When the water was ready, I went back into the bedroom, where I’d left a terry-cloth robe for her to change into.

Lindy was sound asleep sideways on my bed, the turquoise satin spread wrapped around her like a cocoon. The robe I’d left for her was on the floor. A light breeze lifted the sheer white curtains at the French doors leading out to the deck.

I sighed and drained the bathwater, then got a sheet and blanket from the hall closet and stretched out on the couch in the living room.

I didn’t sleep well. Scenes that I’d long ago stuffed back into the far recesses of my mind, hoping never to see them again, kept flitting across my closed eyes.

Roger Van Court.

The bastard.

But how much could I—or should I—tell Lindy?

Lindy had knocked on my door at about one-thirty, and it was just after three, according to the clock over my mantel, when I woke, thinking I’d heard a sound on the deck. I sat up carefully and walked to the double French doors, which were similar to the ones in the bedroom. There was no moon, and it was hard to see if anyone was out there. Even harder to hear, over the ocean’s roar.

I cussed myself out for having left everything but the front door unlocked. I’d turned off the lights in the living room, though, and I figured that was good. A long time ago, I’d learned in a self-defense class that it’s better to be in the dark in your house when an intruder is there. The intruder doesn’t know your house, but you do, which means you can navigate around it better than he.

On the other hand, flashlights can be useful.

Crouching close to the floor, I made it to the kitchen and was just reaching for my one flashlight in the utility drawer when I heard the doors leading from the deck to the bedroom slam open against the inside wall. Lindy screamed.

I grabbed the flashlight and ran to the bedroom, shouting, “Get out! Get out of my house!”—also a technique I’d learned in a class. Take the intruder by surprise and get him off balance. Stupidly, however, I hadn’t remembered to stand to the side of the doorway, in case whoever was in there had a gun.