How to Party with a Killer Vampire (21 page)

“That’s all stuff from last year, when Jonas Jones sued Bodie for spying on him.”

“So Jonas got a restraining order against him?”

“Yeah. He said Bodie kept showing up every place he went. Even tried to get on to the set over on TI. But as I said, that was a year ago, about the same time Lucas Cruz sued him too. The cops took all the stuff from this year.”

I looked at the official paper. Someone had scrawled the figure “$50,000.”

“Did he end up selling a picture of Jonas worth fifty thousand dollars?” I asked.

“Oh no. Just the opposite. Bodie got caught trying to photograph Jones with some woman at a café after he’d gotten the injunction. Jones called the cops and Bodie was arrested. He ended up having to pay Jones fifty grand.”

Interesting. I wondered if the woman Jonas had been photographed with was Angelica. He had sued Bodie and won a large settlement. Maybe Bodie had held a grudge against Jonas and had come to the party to threaten him. Had he also been around the night before while we were setting up the party? Then how did Bodie end up dead? And what did this have to do with Spidey’s death?

An even bigger question was: how had Bodie managed to pay Jonas such a large sum of money when it was clear Bodie had no money to speak of?

I replaced the photos in the box, keeping the file, and turned to Robby to thank him.

“So,” Robby said, grinning, “you single?”

This guy was full of surprises. Caught completely off guard, I mumbled, “Oh . . .
uh
. . . I . . .”

“McDonald’s has a pretty good strawberry banana smoothie. Tastes like Jamba Juice, but it’s cheaper. And they don’t put all that organic crap in it. It’s just down the street.”

“Oh . . . goodness . . .” I checked my watch, then tapped Mickey. “I . . . have another appointment, and I’ll be late if I don’t get going. But thanks for the offer.”

“You know, Bodie never mentioned he had a sister. Especially not a pretty one,” Robby said, smiling at me like a schoolboy.

I’m sure I blushed from my nose to my toes as I made my way to the door posthaste, stepping over dropped clothing and some paper bags.

“He was full of secrets, that guy,” Robby added, following me into the hall. His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t even know he was invited to that film party the other night until I seen the invite. Probably didn’t tell me’cause he didn’t want the competition.” Robby forced a laugh.

I stopped in my tracks. “Bodie was invited?”

“Yeah, got a invite a day or two before the party. I know ’cause I accidentally opened it.”

Yeah, sure, I thought. Accidentally.

“There was this vampire on the front with his cape open where you could read all the when-where stuff. Although it was kinda hard to read. Looked as though it’d been photocopied.”

The invitations I’d designed and sent had been actual miniature coffins. Inside I’d placed a paper vampire with a folded black cape, just as he described. When the invitee opened the cape, they saw the party details written in glittery red ink. As Robby said, it sounded as if someone had taken out the vampire, opened the cape, and photocopied it. But why? Did someone want him at the party other than Lucas Cruz? Or did he get ahold of the invitation and photocopy it himself?”

“Do you still have the invitation?”

He shook his head. “He took it with him that night. Maybe the cops found it?”

Brad hadn’t mentioned anything about an invitation, so I had a feeling Detective Melvin hadn’t found it. And if it wasn’t on Bodie, where could it be? Had the murderer removed it after killing him?

“You’re sure you haven’t seen it.”

“Nope. It wasn’t in that box of his stuff, right?”

“No,” I said. “Will you let me know if you find it? It might help me figure out what happened to the . . . my brother.”

I really needed lying lessons, I thought. I just wasn’t good at this sort of thing. My mother could always see right through me when I tried, so I eventually gave up.

“Sure you don’t want a smoothie? Maybe some fries on the side? I gotta cut down on my cholesterol”—he patted his gut—“but I’ll bet you don’t hafta worry about stuff like that.”

“No, but thank you, Robby. You’ve been a big help. I have to run. Here’s my card.” I whipped out a Killer Parties business card. It had my name, Presley Parker, on it, but I’d let Robby assume Bodie and I had different last names. “Keep in touch.”

I had just entered the dingy stairwell when I heard Robby call out, “What’s Killer Parties?”

I pretended not to hear him and hurried down the stairs.

Just as Mother had taught me, I walked fast, looked mean, and didn’t make eye contact on the way back to my car. Meanwhile, I thought about what I’d learned from Robby the roommate—that Bodie Chase had received a photocopy of the party invitation. From whom? I wondered.

So what did this latest piece of information mean? Someone had invited Bodie to the party—or at least let him know about it. Someone who had actually been invited and received the formal invitation, then photocopied it. Someone who probably attended the party and wanted Bodie there. But why? To stir up trouble? To give him a chance to find out a little dirt on the attendees?

Or to murder him?

When I reached my MINI in the Civic Center parking lot, I breathed a sigh of relief—I still had tires. There were no visible marks on the car, the convertible hood hadn’t been slashed, and, when I checked, I found my laptop still in the trunk. I hopped in before someone decided to carjack me, and headed for the next person in the entertainment business who might have more information and perhaps might know something about the retraining orders—Gossip Guy himself.

As the San Francisco Bay Area correspondent to the Hollywood show, Ryan Fitzpatrick was a well-known personality in the City. He was the one who kept an eye and ear on our local celebrity gossip. San Francisco had its fair share of stars and scandals, rockers, and rehabbers. He reported his “facts” back to the
Gossip Guy
show via satellite, while sharing the items on the local news station. No doubt he had billions of followers on Twitter, Facebook, and his blog.

I pulled up to a soon-to-be-vacated spot on Van Ness, not too far from the TV station where he worked, waited for the Mercedes to drive off, and parked the MINI. Checking my guest list, I found Ryan’s cell number and punched it into my iPhone. He answered on the first ring.

“Talk to me,” he said, not wasting any time on greetings or salutations.

“Is this Ryan Fitzpatrick?” I asked, although I recognized his voice from TV.

“Possibly. Who’s this?”

“Presley Parker, from Killer Parties. I’m the one Lucas Cruz hired to host the Vampire Wrap Party.”

“Oh yessss,” he said, suddenly more interested in talking to me. “You got something for me?”

“I may have. I wonder if I could see you. I’m right outside the studio.”

“Sweet. I love it when news comes to me for a change. Just check in at the front desk and come on up. Third floor.”

I hung up. That was easy. All you had to do was tell a reporter you had some news he might be interested in and he’d show you the red carpet. I wondered what would happen when he found out I didn’t have anything—at least, nothing I would share with him. Hey, I’ve been thrown out of better places than a TV studio.

I stuffed coins in the meter and walked a few feet to the studio. The two glass doors were locked when I tried to enter. I heard a buzz, tried the doors again, and one of them gave. Inside, I was greeted by a uniformed security guard standing behind a tall reception desk. He pushed a pad of paper toward me as I approached.

“Hi, I’m Presley Parker, here to see Ryan Fitzpatrick.”

“Sign in, please.” He handed me a pen.

I did as I was told, filling in my name, my arrival time, what company I represented, and who it was I was there to see.

He pushed a visitor name tag toward me. “Fill this in. Return it when you leave.” He handed me a black marker.

I printed my name neatly, peeled the back off the sticker, and stuck it on the front of my black vest.

The security guard pointed to the elevators with the pen. “Third floor.”

I followed his directions and moments later found myself on the third floor. A narrow hallway led to a number of offices on either side. When I came to a room full of busy-looking people sitting at desks, I guessed this was the newsroom and approached a young woman who’d just hung up her phone.

“I’m looking for Ryan Fitzpatrick,” I said to her. She pointed to a desk at the back of the room. I nodded my thanks and zigzagged around several desks to reach Ryan, passing several familiar faces I saw regularly on the news.

Ryan was on the phone when I reached him, so I took a moment to look around the inner workings of a TV newsroom. It looked much like any office—desks filled with computers, papers, knickknacks, awards, and family photos.

But the chart on the wall was what caught my eye.

A dry-erase board the size of a billboard covered most of one long wall. It was divided into grids with a black marker—the days of the week across the top, the numbered weeks along the left-hand side. Inside each grid square were what looked like the planned topics for upcoming news shows. They were written in varying colors, and I tried to decipher the code. I guessed that blue meant an interview, green was a restaurant review, purple was a local event, and red, a topical story. Today had been filled in with the blue words “Mayor,” green words “Albona Ristorante,” purple for “Exotic/Erotic Ball,” and red for “Free WiFi in the City.”

“Presley!” I heard Ryan call my name. I reluctantly pulled away from the fascinating board.

“The mayor’s coming today?” I asked as an opener.

“I guess,” Ryan said, apparently not interested in anything that didn’t have to do with Hollywood gossip. He stood to greet me and I shook his hand. He wore his casual clothes, similar to those he’d worn to the party—jeans, T-shirt, and athletic shoes. The hoodie he’d worn hung on the back of his chair. “Come with me. Let’s have coffee in the break room so we can chat.”

I followed him back down the hall to a dimly lit room filled with food and drink vending machines, plus a coffeemaker. Budget cuts, I thought, disappointed not to see a catered café and mini-Starbucks on-site. Ryan poured himself a black coffee and offered me one. I took it with no intention of drinking plain black coffee. We sat down at an empty table—actually, all the tables were currently empty—and I took off my vest.

“So spill. Whatcha got?” Ryan said, jumping in. “Something about those two murders at your party, I hope.”

“They didn’t happen at my party,” I said quickly.

“Whatever. Talk to me.” He leaned in like a hungry wolf about to dine on an innocent lamb.

I sat back to give myself some space. “Actually, I wanted to find out something from you.” If he thought I had something to trade, he was more likely to tell me what I wanted to know.

This time Ryan sat back too, stretching his legs under the table. “Oh, I get it. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. As long as it doesn’t cost me. I spent my last dime on a tip that turned out to be bogus.”

“You were at the party that night,” I said, “so did you see anything that might indicate who killed that photojournalist, Bodie?”

Ryan tapped the table. “First of all, he was no photojournalist. He was a paparazzo, the sleaziest form of life in the news biz. Second, no, I didn’t see anything. If I had, I would have put it in my segment. Now, what have you got for me?”

“You didn’t like Bodie much then.”

“No, I didn’t like him. I told you, he was scum. And Lucas promised I’d have an exclusive. Bodie had no business being there. It was
my
story.”

“Did you know anything about the injunctions Cruz and Jonas had against Bodie?”

Ryan blinked rapidly. This news had surprised even him. “What injunctions?”

I ignored his question as a thought about the time frame jumped to mind. “Wait—didn’t you come to the party
after
Bodie had been kicked out?”

He blinked several times, and tapped his fingers more rapidly on the table.

“I . . . must have seen him on my way in. Or lurking around. Whatever.”

“Whatever?” I said. A red flag went up.

“Look, what’s this all about? I thought you had something for me.” He stood, his face reddening. “I don’t have time for this.”

I remained in my seat and looked up at him. “Did you know that parkour guy named Spidey? The one who was killed the night before the party?”