Dial H for Hitchcock (9 page)

They looked sad.

And that wasn’t even the end of the evening.

As I pulled into my driveway, Connor came striding across my front lawn.

“Hi,” he said, opening the car door for me. “Have you been drinking?”

“Of course not.” Three Advil and a glass of water would take care of it. I started up the path, then stopped, confused. “Why is my house all lit up? Why is my front door open?”

“No need to panic,” he said. “That’s a nice suit, by the way. You look great in red.”

“I’m not panicking,” I said, panicking.

“Good. Because it’s nothing serious.” He took my hand. “Just a little break-in.”

And I knew exactly what they were looking for.

I
raced inside, Connor at my heels.

“Slow down,” he said. “Let me make you some coffee.”

“I don’t want any coffee.” I headed straight for my bedroom, stumbling a bit as my shoe caught on the edge of the rug.

“You could hurt yourself that way,” said Connor, steadying me. “The last thing you need right now is to be on crutches.”

“Stop being so overprotective.” I continued down the hall. “Where are my animals?”

“Next door. We can go get them whenever you want.”

“Jilly hates cats,” I said. “She’s deathly allergic, remember?”

“She’s out tonight. She won’t be back until morning. I hope you’re not mad. I brought them over because there was a lot of confusion with the cops and everything.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “What were the cops doing here?”

Connor looked surprised I was asking. “Attempting to apprehend a criminal, I would imagine.”

“Very funny.”

“Sorry,” he said, pushing his blond hair out of his eyes.

“Look, I’m extremely confused. What exactly happened here?”

“When I got home, there was a cruiser parked outside your house, lights on and everything. I was at the movies. One of those torture porn things. I’m the perfect demographic, males aged eighteen to twenty-seven. But bad acting always ruins it for me. It had a great opening scene, though.”

I cut him off before he launched into a plot synopsis. “So the cops were here when you got home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you didn’t call them.”

“Nope.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they were driving by and noticed the open door.”

“This is crazy,” I said. “Why would the door be open? The lock hasn’t been jimmied. There are no broken windows. Nothing’s missing—look around you!”

The TV was sitting right in front of his nose. Not that anyone would want a TV dating back to the year America found out Bobby Ewing wasn’t really dead on
Dallas.

“And?”

“And, so, I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the cops wanted something so they broke in themselves! It’s happened before!”

“Come on, Cece. You’re starting to sound crazy.”

I didn’t answer. I was standing in front of the outlet by my bed, staring at the place where the hot pink cell phone that had ruined my life used to be.

I’d plugged it into the charger before I’d left for my lecture.

And now it was gone.

The phone that was registered in my name.

The phone that had been used to harass Anita.

The phone that had a message in its mailbox—from none other than me—threatening Anita’s life.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m not crazy.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know you’re not.”

He sat down next to me, pushed aside the comforter, and put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him without thinking. It felt good. But I wasn’t looking for a man anymore. I had work to do. I straightened up. “So about these cops.”

“Yeah?”

“Two women?”

“Yeah.”

“Good-looking?”

“You jealous?” He looked happy for the first time all evening.

“Just answer the question.”

“Not really. They were kind of butch, actually. Short hair, no makeup. I think they were into each other. They gave me this.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a slip of paper. “That’s the phone number of the precinct house. You’re supposed to call once you know what’s missing. They can’t do a full report without it. But they said
it was unlikely you’d recover anything. You should go through your insurance company. Anyway, that’s what they said.”

I stood up, crumbled the slip of paper into a ball, and tossed it into the trash.

“What’d you do that for?”

“I have a photographic memory. Let’s go next door, okay?”

I
t was after midnight, but Jilly’s place was a hive of activity. Maybe the drones preferred it when the Queen Bee was in absentia.

“Hey, man,” said Connor to two guys who were heading out the door, arms weighed down with cardboard boxes.

“Hey, man,” they said. “See you tomorrow. Don’t forget those cables.”

“No problem,” Connor said.

We squeezed around the oak table formerly belonging to Cher and went into the living room, where the nephew with the tattoos up and down his arms and another guy with tattoos up and down his arms were sprawled on a huge black leather couch with pagers and BlackBerrys and various other electronic devices I couldn’t identify surrounding them like sacred talismans. The television was on, but the sound was off.

“Hey, man,” said Connor.

“Hey,” they responded in unison. Both were wearing rapper-style baggy shorts and house slippers.

“What’s on?” Connor asked.

“Reality show,” said the nephew.

“Reality bites,” said the other one.

They thought that was really funny.

Connor threw his arm around my shoulder. “This is Cece, our neighbor.”

“Terence.” The nephew extended his hand.

“Ellroy,” said the other one. “From what I hear, you lead an exciting life, Cece.”

“Nice to meet you.” I glanced at Connor, who shrugged his shoulders.

“Ellroy’s our smart-ass,” he said.

Terence smiled. “Every family needs one.”

“You’re our dropout,” said Ellroy, much to Terence’s amusement.

One of the devices started ringing, then another. Terence picked them both up, put one to each ear, said, “Hey,” listened, then handed one of them to Connor, saying, “She’s got eyes everywhere.” He handed the other one to Ellroy, who promptly hung up, saying, “I answered those questions an hour ago. I can’t help it if she’s got early-onset Alzheimer’s.” Connor listened for a few minutes, making faces all the while. Then he said, “Your wish is my command,” and hung up.

“So you guys are in entertainment?” I asked.

They looked at each other and cracked up.

“We entertain each other,” said Terence, getting up, “that’s for sure. Anybody need a soda?”

“Actually, I need to get my pets and go,” I said, “but if it’s okay, I’d like to use the rest room first.”

“Sure,” said Connor. “It’s just down the hall.”

I headed the way he pointed, but unfortunately I’m bad with directions.

The first room I came upon looked like the bad guy’s lair in a James Bond movie. There were lights blinking, terminals humming, aluminum attaché cases everywhere.

“Uh, excuse me? Can I help you?” A Latino kid with problem skin pulled off his headphones, and the giant computer screen he was sitting in front of went black.

“Looks like I overshot the bathroom. Sorry.”

He waited until I left before returning to his cyber-plotting.

Further down the hall, I was bushwhacked by the scent of corn chips. Looked like I’d found Jilly’s bedroom. The door was open so I peeked in.

The bed was covered by a pink patchwork quilt with a stuffed Daisy Duck in a pink pinafore propped up against a pink gingham pillow. The dresser was covered with dozens upon dozens of miniature perfume bottles. Plus an industrial-sized bottle of patchouli, which cures dandruff and is also used as an anointing oil in tantric sexual practices. I read that someplace. There were French doors leading out to the pool, draped with pink eyelet curtains with pink lace ruffles at the bottom. I walked over to have a closer look. Jilly had strung fairy lights all over the palms and yuccas. It was magical, in a gruesome sort of way.

Then I heard something rustling outside. I was about to freak out when I remembered the house was full of people. No
danger could come to a person in a house filled with people. Slowly, carefully, I took a step closer to the open window just opposite Jilly’s bed.

There, perched ignobly on the fence between our houses, was my opossum.

His back was turned.

Perhaps he didn’t like corn chips.

I stared at him for a moment. And that was when I discovered something very disconcerting.

From the very spot where I was standing, I could see not only my opossum on the fence, but the entirety of my bedroom.

My curtains were open. My lights were ablaze. My clothes were strewn across the floor. I could even see through my bedroom directly into my turquoise-tiled bathroom. The place where I take off all my clothes at least once a day.

“Hey, man,” said Ellroy. “This isn’t cool. What are you doing in Jilly’s bedroom?”

I spun around guiltily. “What am I doing in Jilly’s bedroom?”

He took a step closer to me. “Yeah, that’s what I asked.”

A loud meow came from under the bed.

“I was looking for my cat, of course.” I got down on my knees, yanked up the dust ruffle, and grabbed Mimi by the tail. “And here she is, none the worse for wear.” I pulled her out for Ellroy’s inspection.

“Jilly’s going to be pissed,” he said. “She hates cats.”

“That shouldn’t be encouraged.”

Ellroy looked nonplussed. Some smart-ass. “Did you find the bathroom?”

“Yeah. You’ve got a leak under the sink. Did you know that can lead to toxic mold?”

“Shit. Jilly’s going to go ballistic. Do you know a good plumber?”

“No,” I said, smiling.

“There you are, Cece,” said Connor. “I’ve got your dog.”

I took Buster’s leash. “We have to go home now.”

As we were squeezing back around Cher’s table, something occurred to me. I asked Connor if it was possible that there was a piece of mail he’d missed giving me the other day.

“You missing something in particular?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe something like a big, fat manila envelope. The kind you put a dossier into?”

Terence pulled a large envelope out from under a flyer advertising cheap flights to South America. “What about this?”

“I think that belongs to Jilly.” Connor took the envelope out of Terence’s hands.

“No, man,” said Ellroy. “Look.”

It was clearly addressed to Ms. Cece Caruso.

“My mistake,” Connor said. “Take it.”

Once I was back inside my house, I dead-bolted the front door and pushed three of my dining room chairs up against it. Then I sat at the kitchen table and picked up the manila envelope. The return address read, “Gersh Investigations.”

Hands shaking, I ripped it open and spilled the contents onto the table. Inside were dozens of photographs of a tall blond woman who was starting to look very familiar.

Anita Colby.

Anita smiling.

Anita frowning.

Anita walking down the street.

Anita getting into a car.

She had the kind of grace you could see even in a still photograph.

There was also a packet of smaller envelopes tied up with a pale blue ribbon. The letters from her ex, I was guessing.

And an invoice made out to Cece Caruso in the amount of twelve hundred dollars.

Looked like I wasn’t just your average stalker.

I’d been so obsessed I’d hired a P.I.

Later that night, as I sat in the chair in my bedroom, the lights off and the curtains drawn, I wondered what would have happened if I’d hadn’t gone back for the cell phone that day.

What if I’d just kept running toward Anita’s body?

Maybe she would have been alive when I got there.

Officer Lavery said she’d died on impact. But maybe she’d lived for a few minutes.

Maybe I could have held her hand. Talked to her. Listened. I was such a good listener.

But I hadn’t run to Anita. I’d run away from her dead body, and when I’d come upon the ringing phone, I’d given in to my curiosity.

What if I hadn’t given in?

What if I hadn’t said, “Hello?”

T
he next morning, I got up at the crack of dawn, showered, dressed, and ate a well-balanced breakfast.

After washing and putting away the dishes, I opened the freezer, took out a gallon tub of vanilla ice cream, removed the top, and extracted six hundred and eighty dollars in wilted twenties.

Then I went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and pulled out a can of Solarcaine Aloe Extra spray, for nonstinging sunburn relief. I unscrewed the bottom and pulled out a roll of twenty ten-dollar bills.

In the living room, I thumbed through my CD collection, and found
The Judds: Greatest Hits.
The case opened with a click, and out came six crisp hundreds.

Next, I unzipped one of the seat cushions on the maroon velvet couch, stuck my hand inside the foam rubber, and slid out seventy-six five-dollar bills, which added up to the tidy sum of three hundred and eighty dollars.

The ficus plant next to the couch yielded a Ziploc bag containing two hundred dollars in fifties.

I keep my tool kit in the basement. After finding a Phillips head screwdriver, I headed into Annie’s old bedroom and in two minutes flat I’d removed the switch plate by the window, pulled out the little box I’d ordered a decade ago from the back of a magazine, and removed a stack of bills held together with a fat rubber band.

Seven hundred and ninety five dollars to be precise, bringing the grand total up to two thousand eight hundred and fifty-five bucks.

It was more than enough to get out of town.

I closed the curtains, hit the lights, locked up, threw my suitcases into the trunk, dropped the pets off at the ladies’ house—staying just long enough to request they cool it with the cheddar cheese—and made my getaway.

My first stop was the office of Dr. Barbara Rudes, lesbian neurologist.

That would be
B
is for Barbara Rudes.

She’d given me her card that night at the Orpheum, and by some miracle I’d come across it again when I was packing. As luck would have it, she ran an open clinic on Saturdays. Her receptionist told me to show up early if I didn’t want to wait.

Out of sheer laziness, I pulled into the overpriced lot opposite Cedars-Sinai Medical Center only to have it hit me that I had to be extremely careful about money now. But I didn’t want to waste time moving the car to the municipal lot two blocks over, so I promised myself I’d skip lunch.

As I approached the building, a swarm of men in hoodies descended upon me, cameras clicking, until one of them
informed the group that I was a nobody, which would have been insulting if it weren’t true, not to mention I was supposed to be going underground. He did open the door for me, proving that chivalry is not dead, even among the paparazzi.

The receptionist asked me to sign in.

I picked the very first name to pop into my head.

Mrs. Cece Gambino.

Then I sat down on a chair to fill out the medical history. Cece Caruso’s was pretty boring, but Cece Gambino suffered from a host of hideous ailments, including migraines, insomnia, and vertigo. I figured that was my best shot at getting in before the beefy guy sitting next to me, who was reading the Bible and appeared to be in the pink of health. The only glitch came when the receptionist asked for my insurance card, which I pretended to have forgotten at home, reassuring her that I’d be paying in cash.

After about fifteen minutes, the beefy guy’s beeper went off. He stood up, tucked his book into his pocket, and straightened his shirt. Then the door to the inner sanctum opened and out came a world-famous former teen pop star wearing dark glasses and what appeared to be a nightie. The beefy guy helped her on with her coat, took her arm, and led her out to the vultures.

My turn.

After a twenty-minute wait in the exam room, I heard some shuffling outside the door, then some pages turning. Finally Dr. B is for Barbara Rudes entered with a grim look on her face.

“I’m feeling better,” I said. “The room stopped spinning.”

“I don’t usually cure people that quickly,” she said. “What about the migraines?”

“Amazing. Vanished like that.” I snapped my fingers. “Magnesium supplements. Plus I’ve been doing a lot of exercise. Hiking in particular.” I looked her in the eye. “On all the wonderful trails we have here in Southern California.”

“Is there something else I can help you with, then?” she asked. “Because I’m pretty busy today.”

I wasn’t letting her off that easy. “Is hiking something you enjoy, Dr. Rudes?”

“Yes,” she replied, “not that I have much time for leisure activities.”

“That’s a real pity.”

“It is,” she agreed, warming to the theme. “I should probably join a club or something. Is that what you’re suggesting? Get out into nature, away from the office once in a while? Physician, heal thyself?”

“Yes. Exactly. Hobbies are very therapeutic.” As opposed to murder.

She looked down at my high-heeled gladiator sandals. “Tsk, tsk. You don’t wear those shoes when you hike, do you?”

“Of course not. I don’t want to get bunions. I wear tennis shoes. They’re very muddy from the other day. I left footprints in the wrong places, if you know what I’m saying.”

She ran her finger up and down the edge of my file. “You might consider hanging out in the right places, then.” Then she smiled coyly.

So that’s how it was.

You didn’t have to hit me over the head.

Cross B is for Barbara Rudes off the list.

“Time to ’fess up,” I said. “I’m not here because you’re a legend in neurology circles.”

She slammed down my file on the sink before I could finish. “I’m such an idiot. This is unbelievable. It was Chantal. She sent you, didn’t she?”

“Who’s Chantal?”

“My girlfriend. She’s the jealous type. Did she pay you? She usually pays handsomely.”

“Chantal,” I said. “Beige cardigan, a little edgy? Speaking of Chantal—”

“You know the way out.” The doctor opened the door.

“Wait,” I said, hopping off the exam table. “Don’t you remember me? From the other night at the Orpheum? We were watching
Vertigo.
You, me, and Chantal. Also a blond woman in a robin’s-egg blue dress, and a bald man. Third row up from the back. You gave me your card.”

“Oh, God,” Dr. Rudes said. “Of course I remember you. Chantal told me about the little scene you made. We could run an MRI, but I suspect the trouble has no organic cause. You need a psychiatrist, not a neurologist.”

“Barbara,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Did you happen to notice anybody with a hot pink cell phone that night?”

“No offense, but do you know how crazy you sound?”

“Have you ever heard the name Anita Colby?”

“No.”

“Do you think Chantal knows anybody named Anita Colby?”

“I’m sure she does.” She sighed. “To tell you the truth, I work too hard to have the time or energy to pursue multiple relationships, much less hobbies, but Chantal is voracious.
That’s the only word for it. Nothing and nobody satisfies her! She assuages her guilt by attributing the same behavior to me, but it’s projection, pure and simple.”

And she’d looked so beige and mousy.

“You have one more minute,” Dr. Rudes said. “There are sick people waiting.”

Think.

I’d put my purse under my seat next to Chantal’s shopping bags. When the lights came up, she was the one who handed it back to me. She could easily have slipped the cell phone into it. Was she the person who’d pretended to be me and hired the P.I.? The one who’d purchased the phone in my name? The one who’d sipped specialty cocktails with Anita at her apartment in the Andalusia?

“Cranberry martinis,” I blurted out.

“I’m sorry. I don’t date patients,” Dr. Rudes said.

“I’m not asking you out,” I clarified. “I’m married, remember?”

“Then you’re just Chantal’s type,” she said. “And she adores Crantinis. With a twist of lime.”

Bingo. “Where was Chantal the afternoon of Wednesday, October twenty-sixth?”

“I have no idea where Chantal is while I’m earning a living. She does a lot of shopping. She sees a life counselor. Takes Pilates classes. It’s a lot of work being Chantal.”

I’ll bet.

“But in answer to your question”—Dr. Rudes pulled out her BlackBerry and fiddled with it—“Chantal spent the afternoon of October twenty-six getting microdermabrasion. I’ve already received the bill. And she looks like hell, if you want
my opinion.”

“Do you have before and after photos?” I could show them to the tiny girl with the cap of neon yellow hair and solve this whole thing like that.

“I do not. Let’s go,” she said, ushering me out the door.

Damn it.

“That’ll be $195 for an office visit,” chirped the receptionist.

“No charge for the lovely Mrs. Gambino,” Dr. Rudes said.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, stop it,” said
B
is for Barbara. “Just order me my usual pork with mint leaves. And don’t even
think
about getting Chantal on the phone.”