Dead at Breakfast (24 page)

“Well?”

Buster said, “Your daughter's in trouble. Cherry.”

“I know which daughter.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Why should I do anything about it?”

“Because you got a fresh deerskin in your shed and it isn't deer season.”

Roy stared at him, his expression calculating.

“What is it you think I should do?” he said at last.

“She wants to see you.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“To show you care what happens to her.”

“And do I?”

“Roy, get in the car before I get ugly.”

Roy Weaver looked slightly surprised, then ambled down the steps, past Buster, over to the cruiser. He got into the passenger seat and sat there.

In the car, they drove the first ten minutes in silence. Roy jiggled his legs and looked out the window. Buster was surprised to discover how much the jiggling legs annoyed him, when they weren't his. Finally, to distract himself, Buster said, “You worked the fire at the inn last week.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So what did you think of it?”

After a pause Roy said, “Do you want me to rate it or something? I give it three stars out of five.”

“I want you to tell me what you think started it.”

“Guy was smoking in bed, what the hell do you think?”

Buster slowed down to pass a girl on a bicycle. She was riding on the road, as there was no paved shoulder.

“I don't think anything, that's why I asked you. Brass thinks it was arson.”

“Shit for brains.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shep Gordon has shit for brains, want me to spell it?”

Roy sounded surprisingly angry.

“I take it you know each other.”

“Historically,” said Roy.

Buster wondered whether he should press for more on this point and decided there were other ways to find out. “Why do you say it was smoking in bed that started it?”

“Sheets and blankets gone. Mattress half-burned. Carpet all melted on the corpse's side of the bed. No smell of accelerant, no evidence of any, the way the flames had moved . . . seen a dozen of them. They're all like that. Wiring fires are different. Different patterns. Arson different still.”

“I see. Would you testify to that?”

Roy barked a laugh. “That's a good one. Shep Gordon asking me to testify about anything.”

“I was thinking of the defense.”

A pause. “Whose?”

Buster thought of asking him if he'd been living in a cave, and then thought that yeah, he pretty much had. “Cherry's. Cherry is accused of setting the fire.”

“Cherry? Weaver?”

“Yes,” said Buster.

Detective Kim Prince had a conflicted relationship with the LAPD. Early in his career he'd been partnered with a dirty cop named
Hritzko, now in jail himself, who had a great conviction rate because he used paid snitches as witnesses when he knew he had the right man but not enough evidence. As Hritzko had a huge ego, he always knew he had the right man. Prince hated him, but learned quickly how dangerous it is to break the unwritten code. If your partner can't trust you, you can't trust him not to leave you in an alley with three armed gangbangers and no backup. Prince asked for a transfer, made detective, and now worked alone whenever he could.

He didn't know how they did things up in Maine, but he had a feeling it was the same all over. Detective Gordon had gotten up his nose when he'd first called for help on the Antippas case. He'd been a little too full of himself, a little too accustomed to being admired. But since then Prince had worked with Deputy Babbin, and that had gone better. What a deputy from the sheriff's department was doing working with staties he didn't know, but Babbin seemed to actually want to solve this thing, not just convict the first boob his eye fell on. And of course, there was the Artemis piece of it. What the hell had gone on in that family? Separate bedrooms. Silk-covered walls. Where were they when that poor girl was falling down the crapper? He happened to have seen her once, being brought into his station house after a DUI in the middle of the afternoon, about five blocks from the Chateau Marmont. Must have been some lunch. She looked so much younger than she did onstage in all that pancake and garbage. She looked beaten, being hustled inside past the paparazzi, a big bruiser in uniform holding either elbow. She showed no bravado, no anger at the press or the police; she just seemed ashamed. It made him sad.

Which was one reason he was once again at the gate of the Antippas home in the Bel Air hills at nine Thursday morning, holding his shield up to the security camera.

Manuela's voice said, “Mrs. Antippas is not at home.”

“That's all right, I think you can help me. That way we won't have to bother her.”

After a long silence, the gates swung open. Prince drove through, parked his car, and crunched across warm gravel toward the kitchen door. On his way he passed a stocky man in clean khaki work pants and shirt, standing with a hedge clipper, watching him.

“
Buenos dias,
” said Prince, and Freddy returned the greeting warily.

Manuela opened the kitchen door to his knock.

“Good morning,” he said, and offered her his identification. She studied it carefully, then handed it back to him and opened the door wide enough for him to pass.

“I was here before,” said Prince.

“I remember.”

“I came back for some more of your cookies,” he said. He got no response.

“Sorry. I guess no one is in a kidding mood. Your name is Manuela, yes?”

She assented to that.

“Mind if I sit?” He gestured to the table under the window where Manuela and Freddy took their meals. “This is a great kitchen,” he added. “Mine is the size of a phone booth. And I like to cook.”

Still no response. She followed him to the table, where he pulled out a chair and sat, and she continued to stand.

“Manuela. Do you mind if I call you that?”

She shrugged.

“You are very protective of Mrs. Antippas. I like that.”

She tipped her head slightly.

“Tell me this. You went to Mr. Antippas's funeral at Forest Lawn?”

Another nod.

“That had to be a nightmare day for you. For all of you.”

Manuela said nothing.

“I know. What would I know about it? More than you might think, but we don't need to talk about that. I'll get to the point. Did Mrs. Antippas have one of those mourners' books there, at the chapel, at Mr. Antippas's service, where people can sign their names so the family will know they were there?”

“I did,” said Manuela, slightly startling Prince, who'd become accustomed to her stonewalling. “I bought a book and put it there. She was not thinking.”

Prince nodded. “You take good care of her,” he said respectfully.

“I take good care of all of them.”

“And you brought the book back too?”

“Freddy did. My husband.” She tipped her head toward the back door, to indicate he was near; she was not alone. In case he thought she could be bullied.

“And gave it to Mrs. Antippas?”

“Not yet. She isn't ready.”

“I can imagine. Where is she by the way? I could wait for her.”

Manuela paused, then said, “Lawyer, I think.”

Prince nodded knowingly.

“Manuela, could I have a look at that book?”

She looked back, impassive.

“Why?”

“It would be helpful, for the people trying to find out what happened to Mr. Antippas.”

“They sent you?”

“They did, yes.”

He could see she was trying to figure out how to say no, on general principle. “It would help them do their jobs. They'll keep it private.” He saw her glance out the window toward the gates,
where today there were only two photographers left from the pack that had been here five days ago. “The press will not get near it, I promise you. You'd be helping Mrs. Antippas.”

Reluctantly, she left him, disappearing into a room beyond the kitchen that seemed to be her domain. She returned with a stack of books and set them down in front of him. Then she stood back and crossed her arms. Some of the books were large with gilt edges to the pages. These, he quickly inferred, had been at the Staples Center, since they were filled with messages to Artemis from friends, admirers, and fans, plus drawings and stickers and tear blotches. Another pair were covered in white leatherette that said
CONDOLENCES
on the covers in silver script. There was one with a silver weeping willow tree against a blue background. The neat script in the front identified this one as being for Alexander Antippas.

Prince opened the book to the first page of signatures, propped it against a melamine sugar bowl to improve his angle, took out his phone, and began photographing the pages. When he was done, he said to Manuela, “By the way, is Mrs. Antippas's sister here? I saw her car in the driveway.”

Glory was at a desk in the sitting room of the guest suite. “A second master, really,” the decorator had called it. It had been designed for Jenny, when she was still, from time to time, living at home, but those days were long gone, and it had been redone in English chintzes for when the senior Pooles came to visit. Manuela showed Detective Prince in, and wordlessly left them.

“I'm sorry to interrupt, I can see you're busy,” said Prince.

“That's all right,” said Glory, though she hadn't risen to greet him. “I'm getting started on the envelopes for my sister.” She gestured to the piles of notes and letters stacked on one side of the desk, and a stack of fresh envelopes from the stationers at her right. “She'll write the notes herself, but I can do the addresses.”

“Must be quite a job,” said Prince. “Considering Artemis.”

“Not the fan mail. Those are at her manager's office. But the personal ones for Jenny and for my brother-in-law. Lisa's determined to answer those herself.”

“Admirable,” said Prince. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“Please,” said Glory, glancing at her watch. For a moment there was silence as Detective Prince looked at her pleasantly, as if she had called him here and he were waiting to find out why.

Finally Glory gestured to the work waiting on the desk and said, letting her impatience show, “Can I help you?”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking that you look different in person than on camera.”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

After a pause, in which Glory waited for the usual compliment, which didn't come, she said, “I hope in a good way,” as if reminding him of his lines.

“Oh. Yes. I was just reading up on your career before I came over. My ex-wife was a fan of your talk show.”

Glory relaxed slightly, and smiled. “I'm glad,” she said. “That makes her and my mom.”

“Oh, you had a pretty good audience share, for daytime cable.”

Glory looked pleased. “You do your homework.” She gave him an impressive camera-friendly smile.

“She liked the shows you did with that animal guy, Cliff . . .”

“Hagerty. Those were fun.”

“Some of them are on YouTube, did you know that?”

“They are?” she lied.

“Yes, the one with cheetah cubs?”

Glory preened a little. “They were adorable. They had sharp little needle teeth though.” She had made a joke on the show about how good they'd look as a coat, after one of them bit her rather hard.

“They must give you some training before they actually tape the show, when you're working with wild animals.”

“They do, of course. My producer wanted me just to be surprised, on camera, he said it would be funnier, but I didn't think it was safe. Cliff didn't either. He taught me how to hold them, and made sure my smell was familiar to them.”

“And the time he brought the snakes,” said Prince. “That python, that was enormous, that thing.”

“Yes,” said Glory. Her expression had changed for a moment. “I remember that one. Nineteen feet long or something. They'd found her in someone's swimming pool in Orange County.”

“And that little nest of poisonous snakes he brought. Were they drugged or something?”

Gloria was now a little wary. “I don't think so.”

“I just wondered. You seemed so calm around them. You must have worked with them before the show too, like with the cheetahs.”

Glory glanced at her watch. “I must have,” she said.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I'm keeping you. My wife will be so interested to hear all this.”

“You said ex-wife.”

“Yes. But you know what they say, divorced but never unmarried. I'm told you were very angry with your brother-in-law the night of the fire, up in Maine.” Prince took out his notebook and a pencil.

“Oh were you.” She was now thoroughly tired of this guy with his Columbo routine.

“I was. Is it true?”

“Of course it's true. He behaved like a pig to my sister. To everybody. He
was
a pig. A fat, selfish, unfaithful pig.”

Prince just looked at her, as if contemplating the intensity of her speech.

“Unfaithful? Did your sister tell you that?”

“She didn't have to,” said Glory haughtily.

“No? Why not?”

She stared at him. “Everybody knew.”

“The children?”

“Not the children. As far as I know. Oh maybe even they knew. What's your point?”

“That not everybody knew. But you did.”

After a long moment she said dismissively, “He was my brother-in-law. I'm very close to my sister.”

Prince turned to a clean page. “Is it true you said you'd like to stick a knife in him and twist it?”

“Probably. But
I didn't
.”

“No, we know he wasn't stabbed. But you went to his room that night?”