Homicide in High Heels (23 page)

I narrowed my eyes at the detective,
wondering exactly what sort of
exhaustive analysis
he'd
done. So far all I'd seen him analyzing was his B-roll from
Baseball Wives
.

"We have officially cleared all members of
the team and their spouses," Hardy emphasized, nodding toward Mr.
Schwartzheimer, "of any suspicion whatsoever in this tragic death.
It is our conclusion that persons unknown and unaffiliated with
this baseball family perpetrated a random crime upon the
unfortunate Miss Desta."

It was all I could do to keep myself from
jumping up and shouting, "Not true!" Random crime at Fernando's
salon was exactly the sort of thing that would shut him down for
good. Who knew when the next
random
tanning salon killer
would show up, right?

"I assure you that myself, detective
McMartin, and the entire LAPD will continue to tirelessly look for
this unknown individual. However, I would just like to repeat they
have nothing whatsoever to do with the Stars family."

I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at
the detective and wondering just what sort of season tickets the
owner had promised him in exchange for this declaration of "not
under cloud of suspicion."

"Quite interesting," Felix said beside
me.

"Interesting is one word to use for it."

"I take it your husband doesn't agree with
this assessment?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that
my husband thought that Laurel and Hardy were the two biggest
losers on the LAPD. However since I was talking to a tabloid
reporter, I chose my words carefully.

"My husband would prefer to focus on the
persons unknown rather than the Stars publicity."

Felix gave me half a grin. "You realize that
gives me nothing printable."

"Thank God for small favors."

* * *

Felix left me in the parking lot with a
promise to check in with Cam about those photos of Ratski as soon
as he got back to the
Informer
's offices. Once I got back to
my car I looked down at my cell and saw it was just past noon. I
had a brief thought of going home for lunch, but it faded as soon
as I spotted the enticing beacon of the Del Taco sign down the
street from the stadium. A Macho Burrito was just what I needed to
plan my next move. I hit the drive-through and parked under a tree
in the lot as I dug into my cheesy, spicy, heaven on a tortilla,
letting the flavors dance on my tongue as my mind wandered over the
case.

While Laurel and Hardy had cleared the Stars
and their wives, I had exactly the opposite feeling. It was clearer
than ever to me that Lacey had been blackmailing someone in the
team "family," and that someone had wanted her dead. My favorite
suspect was still Ratski. He was dating somebody; that much was
clear. "Who" was another question, but if Lacey had somehow found
out and was blackmailing him over the sort of affair that his wife
couldn't ignore, it gave Ratski good motive to want to shut her
up.

Then there was Beth herself. Lacey
had
been seen having dinner with Ratski. Maybe Lacey had
been the one having the affair after all, and Beth wanted her out
of the picture.

Of course it could have just as easily been
one of the other players who wanted Lacey out of the picture. If
someone was using performance enhancers, say someone like Gabriel
Blanco, that would've been excellent fodder for blackmail as
well.

I paused to take a near orgasmic bite of my
burrito, chewing thoughtfully as my mind worked over the rest of my
list. In addition to the players there were the other two wives.
Liz had been Lacey's former employer, and they'd been seen fighting
over money. If Liz's boutique really was in such financial dire
straits, Liz wouldn't have been able to keep up with the
designer-label-wearing blackmailer's demands for much longer.
Getting rid of Lacey would've been a faster solution to her
problem. And then there was Kendra. She wanted Lacey gone for
reasons that had nothing to do with blackmail, but if she really
was worried about her husband's contract not being re-upped due to
seemingly poor performance on the field, she had an excellent
reason for wanting to keep Bucky's head in the game. Hadn't it been
Kendra who had told me Bucky was eager to get back to work? Maybe
keeping his mind in the game, and off his girlfriend—dead or
alive—had been Kendra's main goal all along.

I mentally went through my list of suspects
as I wiped a dab of guacamole from my chin. The problem was any one
of them could've wanted Lacey gone. They all had excellent reasons,
and they all had shaky alibis. I could see why detectives with an
aversion to work might rule this case the way Laurel and Hardy just
had.

I was just finishing up the last of my
churro (Hey, I needed something sweet to chase the burrito with!)
and wiping cinnamon sugar crumbs off my black capris when my phone
pinged with an incoming email. I scrolled down to find that, true
to his word, Felix had sent me a file full of photos.

This is everything Cam could pull from
the past two months
, Felix texted.

thanks,
I wrote back before quickly
opening the file. I turned my car on, letting the AC run as I
scrolled through. Some of the photos seemed vaguely familiar, like
I'd probably seen them on the
Informer
website when they'd
gone live. Others were untouched, and I could tell they were raw
footage Cam had taken that never made it to publication. Many of
them were of Ratski at various Stars functions, press conferences,
and charity events. A couple were candid shots of him coming out of
the club or going into a trendy restaurant. I squinted down at the
screen, wishing I had a larger device as I zoomed in and out with
my fingertips, trying to catch the faces of Ratski's companions,
scanning for anybody who seemed to appear more often than they
should. I found a couple of photos where Beth was present. A few
featured his teammates, a guy with a headset and a tablet wearing
horn rimmed glasses that I pegged as a publicist, and a dark-haired
woman with an L.A. Stars jacket. The woman in the jacket was
interesting. Could it be Ratski was sleeping with someone on the
Stars admin team? I quickly whipped through the photos for any
other sign of the brunette. But as far as I could tell she only
appeared in the press event pictures. The only recurring character
in the candid about-the-town photos was the publicist with the horn
rimmed glasses.

Wait.

I paused, flipping back to the first photo,
then looked at the pictures one by one. In almost every photo the
publicist was there—even in places where I wouldn't assume Ratski
would need his publicist's attention, like shopping at the
3
^rd
Street Promenade and grabbing a bite to eat on
Sunset. What was it Felix had said about publicists? Anyone who was
anyone in Hollywood had a gay publicist.

I did a happy dance in my seat, the burrito
jiggling around in my belly. Was it possible that I'd found the
salacious affair just too scandalous to let public? The fans would
forgive Ratski for being a womanizer. Heck, they might even eat it
up, boosting both the
Baseball Wives
ratings and his ticket
sales. But it was another thing to ask the fans of America's
favorite sport to embrace a gay baseball player.

The first thing I did was google "John
Ratski publicist." I quickly came up with the name of Theodore
Schwimmer of Image Public Relations, who had offices on Highland.
If Lacey had somehow found out about Ratski and Theodore, it would
have been perfect blackmail fodder. The last thing Ratski would
want is for his wife to find out. However, if Lacey really was
about to be on the
Baseball Wives
show with Beth, it was
about to become much harder for Ratski to keep his secret life from
his wife. Unless, of course, Lacey was out of the picture.

It was a great theory, but what I really
needed was proof—proof that Lacey had somehow found out Ratski's
secret and was using that information to her advantage. And if
there was one person Ratski would have confided in about the
blackmail, I had a feeling his offices were on Highland.

Unfortunately there was a wreck on the 405,
meaning it took me over an hour before I reached the offices of
Image Public Relations. I parked on the street a block down and fed
the meter before hoofing it in my new pewter kitten heels back
toward the office. I pulled open the glass doors to a blast of
welcome air conditioning and rode the elevator to the third floor
offices of Image.

"May I help you?" a blonde woman behind the
desk asked in a pleasantly efficient voice.

"Yes, I was wondering if Theodore Schwimmer
was available?" I replied.

"Do you have an appointment with Mr.
Schwimmer?" The woman consulted a screen behind her desk.

I shook my head. "No. But it's relating to
one of his clients. John Ratski of the L.A. Stars."

"And you are?"

"Maddie Springer," I replied. "I'm with the
L.A. Informer."
I reached into my purse and pulled up the
press pass I'd borrowed from Felix.

The receptionist nodded, and, to my
surprise, instead of calling back to Schwimmer's office, she got up
and made the trek down a short hallway to a closed-door near the
back herself.

I only had to wait a few minutes before she
returned and informed me, "Mr. Schwimmer will see you now."

I nodded my thanks to her and made my way
down the hall.

While Schwimmer's office wasn't overly
large, it was clean and furnished in a contemporary style that
exuded impeccable taste. A small black sofa graced one wall,
flanked by wooden bookcases, and a dark wood desk sat in the center
of the room. Behind the desk sat the man from the pictures with the
horn rimmed glasses. In person he was shorter than I had
anticipated, though slightly chunkier. He had dark hair and a pale
complexion that said he didn't spend much time in the California
sunshine drifting in through his window. He was dressed in pressed
slacks, a starched shirt, and a tie that lay across his chest
straighter than an arrow. His appearance gave off an air of tidy
organization. If I had to pick someone to be the opposite of
Ratski, I couldn't have gotten closer than this.

His blue eyes blinked at me with
anticipation behind his lenses. "My client has no comment on the
celebrity battle being played out in your tabloid, Ms. Springer,"
Schwimmer started.

I nodded. "Actually, I was wondering if I
could ask you a few questions of a different nature about John
Ratski."

He raised an eyebrow at me, but indicated
that I sit in the leather chair opposite his desk. "Don't you think
that you people have done enough to him this week?"

I bit my lip, thinking fast back to the
partial conversation I'd overheard earlier in Stars parking lot.
"That's why I'm here, Mr. Schwimmer.
The Informer
doesn't
want any legal trouble. We realize every story has two sides, and
there's a possibility that photo of Ratski and Ricky was taken out
of context. I'd like to do a piece on Ratski to set the record
straight and get the real story"

Schwimmer raised his dark eyebrows at me
again. Clearly he wasn't used to members of the tabloid press
asking for a
real
story. "All right," he said slowly, as if
choosing his words like a witness on the stand. "What can I tell
you about John?"

The way he said Ratski's first name only
heightened my suspicions.

"We ran a picture of Ratski with Dana Dashel
the other day, implying that they were on a romantic date." I
watched Schwimmer's reaction carefully.

But like the pro he was, he kept his
poker-face in place. "Yes, I'm aware of this inference."

"But Ratski didn't have any romantic
intentions toward Dana, did he?" I pressed.

"No," Schwimmer answered slowly.

"In fact, Ratski doesn't have any romantic
intentions toward any of the women he's been rumored to be
interested in, does he?" I said pointedly.

Schwimmer paused before answering. "Ratski
is happily married," he replied.

"He's married, all right. But I'm not sure
it's exactly what you call a happy marriage."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Springer, I'm not really
clear about what you're implying. But if you are looking to help
clear Ratski's name in your tabloid…" he trailed off, standing.

I knew when someone was about to give me the
boot out of his office, and this guy was close. Time to pull out
the big guns.

"Ratski's gay, isn't he?"

Schwimmer paused about halfway up from his
seat. He gave me a long look, and I could tell it was on the tip of
his tongue to deny it. But instead he sat back down and steepled
his fingers, giving me an assessing stare.

"What makes you think that?" he asked.

"Sorry, I can't reveal my sources," I
hedged, not quite ready to confess that I'd been going through
Ratski's things and found his love letters. But I charged on,
hitting Schwimmer with all I had before he had a chance to come up
with a good denial.

"Lacey Desta knew it. She had proof that
Ratski was batting for the other team, so to speak. She blackmailed
Ratski, and when he got tired of paying, he killed her."

Schwimmer jumped up from his seat. "That's
completely false! John would never do such a thing. He doesn't have
a violent bone in his body."

"But Lacey
was
blackmailing him?" I
pressed.

Schwimmer looked from me to the door of his
office. He quickly crossed and shut it before turning back to
me.

"This is all off the record, and I swear to
you if I see this in print in your newspaper, I'll not only deny
it, but I
will
sue you for slander."

Since I clearly had no intention to print
any of this, I nodded my agreement.