Gladyss of the Hunt (7 page)

As we patrolled the icy streets of upper Chelsea, we had an on-and-off conversation about the possibility of Noel Holden's guilt.

“Even though I think it's highly unlikely that he killed anyone, you can't eliminate him until you find a witness who puts him on that plane,” O'Ryan said. “Perhaps you can call someone in Spain who was involved in the production.”

“No,” I replied. “We're already pushing it. If just one of those airline people calls the precinct, we'll both be in hot water. And I'll completely blow any chance of getting the homicide assignment.”

“Do you know what the odds are you'll even get a thirty-day spot?” he said, needling me.

“I'm a tall blonde,” I explained, “just like the three vics.”

“Oh, right—and it would never occur to them to get a seasoned female detective and put a blonde wig on her.”

“Yeah, but they don't have anyone who is already dating a decent suspect,” I taunted him. O'Ryan nodded his head.

“There really is absolutely no reason he should be a suspect in this case,” he said.

“I'm telling you he was
there
, right when I—” I had been about to reveal my Kundalini moment.

“What's his motive? Where is
anything
to tie him to the killing?” he said. “You're just like your idiot brother, you see only what you want to see.”

“Don't talk about my brother that way!”

He apologized immediately, so after a moment I added, “How about the fact that Holden likes tall blondes, and that's the profile of all three victims?”

“What tall blondes does he like?”

“Me,” I pointed out. “He asked me on a date.”

“And that explains motive too,” he added. “'Cause if all the victims were half as annoying as you—”

“Call me obsessive,” I interrupted, “but I'm going to a party with Holden when he gets back to town. I'll get his prints and then we'll know for sure.”

“What is this date anyhow?”

“A big investors party thrown by one of his producers.”

“This all sounds really dumb.”

“I'm doing it.”

“The man definitely has a history of scumbaggery, and that director he hangs with, that Crispin character, is by all accounts even worse,” O'Ryan said emphatically. “And you're doing it as part of an unofficial murder investigation, which means it's not only potentially dangerous, it's grounds for disciplinary action.”

“Hey, you helped me, so you'd be up on charges too,” I pointed out.

“And I was wrong to do it,” he declared. “But it ends here.”

“What?”

“Just suppose he
is
the murderer?”

“We'll know once I get his prints.”

“Then I'll go with you as back-up.”

“Back-up?” I asked. “I'm supposed to be his
date
. We're going to a party at his friend's house. And he knows what you look like. And he hates you.”

“Just keep your cell phone on, and I'll be in a car downstairs. If there are any problems, I'll come up.”

“No way!”

“Well I'm sorry, but I'm not letting you do this alone,” he replied.

“You're not
letting
me?” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “What exactly do you think you're going to do?”

“I'll report you. I'll call Farrell and tell him what you're doing.” Typical macho control shit.

“I can't believe you'd even consider . . .” My anger paralyzed me, and I couldn't say another word.

“Look, I care about you, as your friend as well as your partner. You can date whoever you want. I fully respect your private life. But you're playing detective now, going undercover on a date with a murder suspect without back-up . . . If I did something like that, I like to think you'd care this much about me.”

It was difficult to be angry with him when he put it that way.

“Tell you what,” I compromised. “I'll call you before I go on the date, and then after I get home to let you know I'm okay. How's that?”

“You're not going to sleep with him for his DNA sample or something crazy like that?”

“Hell no! How can you ask me that?” He knew I was a virgin, and now he had the gall to imply I was a slut?

“Frankly, since New Year's I've realized I don't know you at all,” he said coolly.

“I'll call you before and after,” I said, which was more than he had done. “We'll let it go at that.”

That evening, after my yoga class, I had intended to ask the Renunciate about my mini-Kundalini moment outside the hotel. I specifically wanted to know if wishing for something positive, something selfless, could actually facilitate realizing that thing. Then I realized I'd never even told him I was a cop, and that it could turn into a much longer, messier talk. I went home and at some point during the fifteen minutes that I listened to Maggie while she ate my salad, I idly asked her what she knew about Crispin Marachino.

“His real name is Chris Maron,” she began and proceeded to download his bio from the web site in her brain: “He was a high school dropout who worked as a video store clerk by day and wrote scripts at night. When his mother, who was in the production department at Paramount Pictures, showed one of his scripts to an actor who was big in the 70s, the guy loved it. Marachino agreed to let it go for peanuts, provided he was allowed to direct it.
Crime Noir
was a big hit. Thirty million opening weekend. His second film,
Slim Jim
, broke even; his third film,
Killers In Love
, bombed. Noel Holden had small roles in all three films. Now he's starring in
Fashion Dogs
, which premieres in a few weeks.”

“What do you know about Venezia Ramada?”

“Silicone D-cup bimbo. Born Vanessa Ramone. Granddaughter of Ronnie Ramone, the founder of the multinational candy manufacturer. She met Crispin at the Hollywood nightclub Vespers. He proposed to her on the dance floor and decided to make her his next big discovery. Then a month later, on the set of
Fashion Dogs
, she went crazy for Noel Holden.”

“Which is probably why she was such a bitch to me.”

“Oh God,” she said. “You didn't fall in love with Noel, did you?
Tell me you didn't!”

“I know this sounds bizarre, but considering O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake . . .”

“Neither of them were found guilty,” she shot back before I could finish my thought. Maggie must've been the last kid in class who believed in Santa and the freakin' Easter Bunny. She swore Michael Jackson was repeatedly being framed.

“I'm supposed to go to some party with Noel.”

“You what?”

“He invited me to the pre-premiere party.”

“But he's dating Venezia!”

“It's all just show.”

“He asked you on a date?”

Her right eyebrow twitched and her mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. Celebrity news came from dubious web sites or TV shows. Certainly not from the cynical virgin who lived next door.

“It's not what you think,” I said, slightly fearful of her reaction. “I'm really not interested in him.”

“Exactly which party are you going to . . .?”

“Miriam someone is throwing it.”

“Miriam Williams!”

“He said she was a producer or something.”

“I've worked her parties before. She used to be the mistress of a big film producer. She got him to divorce his wife for her. When he died, she became the big producer. She's producing Crispin's latest project.”

Catching herself, she added, “Be careful, Gladyss, these celebrities use little people like us, then toss us away like pistachio shells.”

“I really am
not
interested in him,” I said again.

“Then why are you going on a date with him?” She was indignant.

“I know what I'm going to say will sound weird, but, I think I had a Kundalini moment involving him.”

“What does that have to do with . . .”

Since she knew so much about the superstar, I just asked her point blank: “I know it sounds weird, but do you think Noel Holden could kill someone?”

“What!”

“Twice in a twelve-hour period I saw him in the vicinity of a
murder scene, on Forty-second. A crime scene that was not public knowledge at the time.”

“Forty second Street is hardly the middle of nowhere, is it? And he's an actor. Just because he happens to be around there, that hardly makes him a murderer.”

“I'm not picking on him because he's a big actor. I'm just checking his prints and alibi and that's the end of it. “

She sighed deeply, as if to keep from panicking, then she muttered, “My God, are you kidding? What did I do? What did I do!”

“What
did
you do?'”

“Don't you see? I did this! I wrote those letters to him and put all those messages out there.”

“Out where?”

“Out there!” she pointed to the air around her. “And you must've been picking them up! Shit!”

“Look I just want to get his prints,” I said, hoping to calm her. “Then I can eliminate him as a suspect.”

“Once you get his prints you'll back off?”

“I swear.”

“I'm better than I used to be,” she said, showing that she was aware of her own flaky behavior. “I've stopped the letter writing . . .” She paused, because I guess she didn't want to lie, then amended, “Well, at least I've stopped mailing them.”

I gave her a hug.

“Oh, look at the time,” she said looking at my Elvis Presley wall clock. “I'm going to miss
A Most Singular Man
!” Before I could tell her that she was welcome to watch it on my TV, she was out the door.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next day at roll call, Sergeant McKenner informed me that my prayers had been answered, if only conservatively—my thirty-day reassignment to homicide had just come through.

“Thirty?” I replied. “It was supposed to be ninety.” That was what I had put out into the universe
à la
Maggie.

“No problemo, I'll just tear this up.”

I grabbed the reassignment order. It ended on the exact day I was scheduled to have my eye surgery. A coincidence? I thought not.

O'Ryan had a frozen smile on his face, hovering somewhere between jealousy and envy.

“If you like I'll buy you a blonde wig,” I mocked him. He'd been so sure I wouldn't get the job. He called me a lucky stiff.

“If I get killed,” I shot back. “I'll just be a stiff.”

“Are you still going on your surreptitious date with the lady-killer?”

“Yeah, and I'll call you when I get home, just like I promised.”

I cleared out my locker and headed over to Manhattan South Homicide, at Thirty-fifth Street near Ninth Avenue.

I checked in with the desk sergeant, who had me fill out a short stack of paperwork. Then I was directed up to Sergeant Farrell's squad room on the fourth floor. I felt like a child as he introduced me to the other two investigators assigned to the case; I'd seen them briefly at the murder scene two days before. Annabelle Barrera and Alexander Oldfield were both third-grade detectives. Annie, as she liked to be called, was an attractive middle-aged Latina; I would learn that she watched her diet and maintained an exercise routine as best
as she could while fighting crime and raising two high school-age boys. Alex, who was African American and lived in Orange County, seemed intent on going the other way. As I witnessed throughout the first day, his large flabby body was constantly being fed from a bottomless drawer filled with extra large bags of cheese puffs. The one uncanny thing about them was that though they were of different races and sexes and had different body types, their faces were weirdly similar.

Hopping slowly around on his one good foot, Bernie led me into his small corner office, which had the name Herbert Q. Kelly painted on the glass door. It was his old partner's.

“Kelly?” I asked, “Herbert wasn't related to Ray?”

“He liked to be called Bert, and no, he was not related to our commissioner.”

“Bert and Bernie?” The pair of them sounded a little
Sesame Street
.

“The reason you're here”—he was done with the chitchat—“is that yesterday we got a call from a downtown madam who said she had a john asking for a tall blonde.”

“You're kidding.”

“Annie pulled on a wig and we went in. The guy took one look at her and said she was too short, and too old.”

“So you lost him.” I only wished O'Ryan could hear this.

“No, we brought him in anyway, checked out his prints and his alibi for the three murders. So it wasn't a complete loss. But Annie agreed that we should find some sexy blond giraffe. So thank her for your assignment.”