Little Black Book of Murder (18 page)

At the far end of the studio, a young man in tights and a snug T-shirt was calling a handful of lanky teenage boys into a circle. I spotted Libby's twins among them—­both hanging back and grinning with evil purpose. If they were attending the class, they had not come willingly. Their instructor was encouraging them to close their eyes and breathe.

To me, Emma muttered, “You close your eyes around those two at your own risk.”

“The twins might benefit from some relaxation techniques.” I saw an open door, and I elbowed my sister. “Let's look around before we take them home.”

She followed me to the doorway, and we went into a short corridor. Through an open door, we could hear a voice.

When I turned the corner, I came upon Porky Starr himself sitting at a wobbly card table in a makeshift office and counting money. For once, he wasn't wearing his little hat. It sat on the edge of the table. I realized why he wore it, though. At twenty-­something, he was nearly bald. Beside his elbow sat a stack of checks. He didn't look up from his task but continued to laboriously count cash in large and small bills.

“Seven-­eighty, seven-­ninety, forty-­eight hundred!” He sat back in triumph.

But when he looked up and saw Emma and me, he quickly masked his pleasure. “Parents aren't allowed upstairs, yo,” he said. “It interferes with the learning process. You can pick up your kids outside.”

“It's me, Porter,” I said. “Nora Blackbird. This is my sister Emma. We thought we'd stop in and give you our condolences.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, hi. Thanks.”

His disinterested gaze went past me and sharpened on Emma. Maybe her soccer-­mom look wasn't quite as wholesome as I'd first thought. Her hair was slicked back from the perfect features of her face, and her mouth, untouched by lipstick, was sensuously full. Her snug skirt made no secret of her slim legs and narrow hips, and her form-­fitting sweater didn't hide the fact that her bust size hadn't diminished since her pregnancy.

Porky scrambled to his feet and slapped his hat onto his head. “Yo,” he said, tipping the hat to a rakish angle before extending his hand to her. “I'm Porter.”

“Yo?” she said. “What are you, a reject from the Backstreet Boys?”

He seized her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it.

Emma snatched it back. “Hey, cut that out, kid! Before I kick your ass.”

“Porter,” I intervened, “we're very sorry about your father. It must have been a terrible shock.”

“Yeah,” he said without tearing his gaze from my sister. “A shock. Even worse, we heard who did it to him. A kid whose twerpy little brothers are here in the program.”

One look at Emma had emptied his head. He had forgotten who I was, forgotten my connection to Rawlins.

“The program?” Emma said, likewise choosing not to identify herself as the aunt of the twerpy brothers or his father's alleged killer. “You running some kind of rehab here?”

“No, no, this is the Starr Hollywood Academy. I'm a talent scout. And I gotta say, even before I've heard you sing, you've got what it takes, baby.”

Nothing pushed Emma's hot button like being called “baby,” but before the steam began gushing from her ears, I said, “The murder must have been so upsetting to you and everyone else in the family.”

For a second I thought I might have to get out my handkerchief and wipe drool from Porter's chin. He responded to my condolence as though Emma had spoken it. “Yeah, everybody's all broken up. But the arrest should calm them down a little.”

“This arrest,” Emma said. “Who was the perp?”

“Nobody important. And his kid brothers are total dipwads. They can hardly walk and talk at the same time. Besides, I think there's something wrong with those two.”

“So why keep them in your program?” Emma asked.

Porky jerked his head to indicate the stack of money and checks on the table. “Man's gotta make a living, baby.”

Emma said, “The killer. He in your program, too?”

“Naw, he's just a hanger-­on. You know, a fan. Nothing cool about that.”

“So why'd he kill your dad?”

“Who knows? There's a lot of crazy stuff that goes on in our world. Fans can turn into stalkers in the wink of an eye, yo. Goes with the territory.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass, having fans.”

“Yeah, it can be a drag. That's why I'm looking to make a change.”

“What kind of change?”

“I got a call this afternoon, after my headshot ran in a newspaper. I might be up for another TV show. Hosting.” He couldn't hide his pleasure. “You know, wear a suit, talk to the camera, introduce the talent. How hard can it be? I have an audition next week. You want to come along? Watch me work?”

While Emma engaged Porky—­and she did it effortlessly, edging ­toward the door and leading him out into the hallway and ­beyond—­I leaned over the table and got a closer look at the checks. With one finger, I fanned them out to read the amounts. A hundred dollars, two hundred. Different amounts, but they all added up to considerable money. I knew what Porky was selling. Each of the kids who had gone rushing down the stairs wasn't getting any real education or even the skills it might take to make a career in show business. But it was a chance to fantasize a life standing in the footlights.

Beside the checks, the sheaf of papers appeared to be a stack of posters that advertised more Hollywood programs in other cities—­Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis. The dates were only weeks away. Porky was taking his make-­dreams-­come-­true show on the road. His face—­a headshot from his younger days—­decorated the top of the poster.

But his office was as low rent as it got. His folding chair had a dent in it. Across the small space was a dusty beaded curtain that separated the room from a storage closet. Through the beads I could see a few boxes stacked there. The top one had been cut open. T-shirts lay in the box. I could see Porter's face on those, too.

His siblings must have been making millions working for their father. Why had Porky struck out on his own? Had he not been welcomed into the family business?

There was one more check on the desk, facedown. With Emma practically hypnotizing Porky, I flipped over the check and took a look.

And blinked.

Half a million dollars.

The recipient was Porky. The flourished signature on the check was none other than his father's, Swain Starr.

A day before his death, Swain had written a check for five hundred thousand dollars.

I sent Emma a glance and edged ­toward the storage room. She got the message and eased out into the small hallway, practically leading Porky by his nose. He followed her like a kitten eager for catnip.

I slipped through the beaded curtain.

And nearly tripped over Zephyr Starr.

In the ten square feet of floor space, she was stretched out in a yoga pose in front of an open window. Her face was blank. Her arms and legs looked unnaturally long. Barefoot, she wore a boat-­necked T-shirt and capri-­length yoga pants with her hair in a tangled but chic knot at the back of her head.

“Zephyr,” I said, unable to stop myself.

She finished another ten seconds of stretching before acknowledging my presence. Her eyes were empty, though, and her face bare of makeup.

Seeing her like that, I realized that all of her features were a bit exaggerated—­a nose too long, a chin too prominent, eyes sunk deep—­and yet she was still undeniably beautiful. Perfect skin. Limber body. Without makeup, she was not as astonishingly gorgeous as when I had encountered her during my interviews with her ­husband—­but certainly she was a showstopper of a woman. It was incongruous seeing her sitting cross-­legged on the dusty floor.

She reached for a string of red licorice lying on one of the cardboard boxes. “What are you doing here?”

“I—­my sister's children take a class from Pork—­er, Porter.” Before she could ask for details, I said, “Zephyr, I'm so sorry about Swain. You must have had a terrible shock.”

If she was in shock, she didn't acknowledge it. In fact, she seemed perfectly composed, if maybe a little dreamy.

But she said, “Can you get me out of here?”

I
must have blinked at her. The words she spoke made no sense to me.

She shook her hair out of its bun, then gathered it up again and redid her hairdo. “Can you get me past Porky? Do you have a car?”

“Is he holding you prisoner?”

“Something like that.”

“Should I call the police?”

She shook her head. “Just walk me out of here, would you?”

“Sure.”

She stood up tall, slipped her feet into a pair of muddy gardening boots and gathered up a bundle—­a coat wrapped around a few lumpy items. If she had stuck the bundle on the end of a stick, she'd have looked like a kid running off to join the circus. Except she walked out using the runway strut that had taken her all over the world.

I followed her from the storage room and down the hall to the dance studio where Emma kept Porky glued to attention alongside the mirrored wall and where the teenage boys were just finishing their relaxation lesson.

“Let's get in touch with our bodies,” the instructor encouraged, eyes rapturously closed as he extended his arms over his head and stood on tiptoe.

The twins snickered. Harcourt pretended to pleasure himself, and Hilton cracked up laughing.

The other boys in the class turned to watch Zephyr make her entrance. The twins forgot about being obnoxious and stared, too.

“Hey,” Porky said, tearing his gaze away from my sister at last. He registered Zephyr's speed and the bundle in her hands. “Where are you going?”

Zephyr kept moving ­toward the door. “This isn't going to work, Porky.”

The instructor intoned, “Feel your feet, boys.”

Porky made a lunge to grab Zephyr's hand and missed. “The hell it isn't. You're not going anywhere.”

“Porky,” I said, trying to head him off. But he rushed past me.

The instructor said, “Now feel your knees.”

None of his students were feeling anything except astonishment. Their mouths sagged open as a flesh-­and-­bone supermodel said, “You're a nice guy, Porky. But the timing—­don't you see how wrong it is? And our age difference is—”

“The age difference didn't bother you with my father.” Porky skidded to a stop in front of Zephyr and blocked the door by flinging his chubby arms wide.

Zephyr stopped in her tracks, half a foot taller than Porky and looking down on him as if he were a gnome. “That was another story.”

“You bet your ass it was! He was way too old for you. Too old for what you want.”

“Feel your arms,” said the instructor, oblivious to the fact that his pupils were agog at the unfolding spectacle.

“You deserve somebody young and exciting,” Porky pleaded. He made himself into a human shield against the door. His voice rose an octave as he dropped the tough-­guy routine. “Somebody willing to share everything with you. You can't go!” His face began to pucker with tears. “Don't leave, Zephyr. Give me a chance! I have money now. I can do anything—­anything you want!”

Zephyr sighed. “Get away from the door, Porky.”

“I want to make you happy.”

With the scene turning maudlin, I said to Emma, “Think there's a back exit?”

“Either that or the fire escape.”

“Fire escape,” I said firmly. “It's quicker.”

“This was never going to work between us,” Zephyr said to Porky. “We knew that, even when your father was alive. But now it's worse.”

“It can only get better! I have enough dough for both of us.”

At that moment, someone shoved on the door from out on the landing, knocking Porky forward and into my arms. Through the door came a large, red-­faced woman who gripped the hand of her young daughter and dragged her inside the studio. Behind her, we could hear the low rumble of more mothers—­like a herd of angry elephants charging a fortress.

In a booming voice, the woman said, “Who's in charge here? I demand to speak to Porter Starr!”

“Uh,” Porky said from under the shadow of her large bosom.

She stepped back and pointed a long, manicured forefinger down at Porky. It trembled with rage. “How dare you speak to my daughter the way you did! Madison is devastated! I demand an apology!”

Madison blew a halfhearted bubble of gum, as if accustomed to her mother's outrage.

With the noise of imminent pandemonium coming up the stairs, the class instructor belatedly opened his eyes. He gasped and made a futile attempt to gather his students out of range. The boys were having none of it. They continued to stare at Zephyr.

Porky regained some of his bombast and stood his ground against the maternal onslaught. “Mediocrity will not be tolerated in the Starr Academy.”

The mother thrust out her jaw and glared down into Porky's face. “Mediocrity! Do you know who I am? Do you know who Madison is? She won the semi-­regional Baby Girl dance competition two years in a row!”

More mothers boiled through the door. Any second, Porky was going to get bulldozed by more estrogen than he could handle.

Emma muttered, “He's toast. Let's get out of here.”

I was already headed across the studio with Zephyr. I shot the twins a searing laser glance, and instantly they swiped the smirks from their faces. Obedient at last, they started after us. It took Emma and both twins shoving at the stuck window to finally get the sash up. One at a time, we clambered out the window onto a shaky metal platform.

I kicked the lever, and the ladder rattled down to the sidewalk in a shower of rust. I went first, balancing precariously on the clanging ladder as it swung wildly beneath me. Overhead, Emma cupped her hands and yelled, “Hurry it up! Any minute Porky's going to need an escape route, too!”

Which was how Emma and I ended up shuttling not only the twins, but also supermodel Zephyr Starr back to Bucks County.

“Anybody have a cigarette?” Zephyr asked, crammed into the middle of the front seat.

“Fresh out,” Emma said.

“I need to quit,” the ex-­model said.

“You don't get off this easy, sister,” Emma said. “What's going on? What the hell was that all about?”

Trust Emma to be blunt when the situation called for it.

Zephyr said, “Oh, it's all such a mess.”

“It sure looked that way. You and Porky?”

“I know it looks funny. But I have a thing for small men.”

“A thing?” I said.

“You know. An attraction. Don't get me wrong, Swain's size wasn't the big reason I fell in love with him. He was the first designer to make me feel like a contributor. A collaborator. Of course, that was before we went to China and I figured out what the score was, but he was nice.”

“The score?” Emma asked.

“He wasn't perfect,” Zephyr went on, ignoring Emma's question. “But he was one of the few men who could see I was a person inside the clothes.” I must have looked puzzled, because she said, “To most designers, the model isn't really there. We're just a hanger with legs, you know? With Swain, though, things were different. He didn't treat me like a blow-­up doll.”

That didn't exactly sound like a compliment to me. “A—?”

“Give me a small man any day,” she said on a fond sigh. “Once I was working with this big-­time hetero fashion designer, and we were standing around talking—­just talking—­and he shoved two fingers up my—­oh,” she said, remembering the twins, crammed behind us in the jump seat and listening to every word. With more composure, she concluded, “Not everybody is nice in the fashion business. That's the life of a model. One minute, you think you're having an intelligent conversation, and the next minute—­inappropriate touching. I mean, seriously inappropriate.”

Emma was shaking her head. “Why would you put up with that?”

Zephyr smiled a little. “Most models grow up thinking we're weird—­too tall, freaks of nature. We're ugly kids, right? And when somebody decides you're beautiful, you're still the ugly kid inside—­the kid who will do anything to be accepted.”

“Nobody deserves to be treated that way,” I said.

She shrugged. “Tall men? Good-­looking guys? They're the worst. They think they can take advantage. But little guys—­they're . . . nicer. Safer. That's why I married Swain. He was always a gentleman.” She sighed again. “But . . .”

“But?” Emma prompted.

“I'm not getting any younger.”

With disgust Emma said, “Don't tell me. Your biological clock started ticking?”

“I think I want a family,” Zephyr said, not exactly sounding convinced. “But Swain couldn't.”

“Vasectomy?” Emma guessed. “All those rich and randy old guys are the same.”

I thought of Marybeth and said, “Someone told me he had gotten his vasectomy reversed.”

“I bet Marybitch told you. Well, we didn't know if it worked—­not yet, anyway. Before we got married, he told me he didn't want any more kids. But I deserve a family of my own, right? That's what all the magazines say. So Swain said he'd get the operation to fix his vasectomy. But his recovery was taking forever. I started looking into other ways of having a baby, looking at different guys. And that's when Porky came along.”

“Hold the phone,” Emma ordered. “Gross me out! You slept with Porky? To have a baby?”

“Well,” Zephyr began.

I thought of the check I'd seen among Porky's other financial windfalls. Before Zephyr could explain, I said, “Swain paid Porky.”

“Jeez! To father a kid for you?” Emma demanded.

“That's not—­Swain heard me and Porky talking about having a baby together, and—­well, he paid Porky to go away
.
Again.”

“Again?”

“Back when Porky was a kid, Swain gave him money to go to Hollywood.”

“That was nice,” I said uncertainly. “Helping his son get started as an actor—”

“No, Porky isn't really Swain's son.” Zephyr used one fingernail to pick at her teeth, unaware of the megaton bombshell she was dropping. “He came along after Swain had his vasectomy. Marybitch was fooling around. Swain agreed to pretend Porky was his kid to avoid the bad press. Paying for him to go to Hollywood was supposed to get him out of Swain's life for good.”

“Who is Porky's real father?”

“Just some random guy. Marybitch wanted another kid, but Swain didn't. So while he was out of the country, she got mad at him and made it happen. Swain couldn't forgive her for cheating on him, though, so he took it out on Porky. The money got Porky out to Hollywood, out of Swain's life. But only for the time being.”

Emma and I exchanged wide-­eyed glances.

“So, I couldn't resist being nice to Porky,” Zephyr said. “I felt sorry for him. He's so small and cuddly and cute. And, y'know, needy. His genes were kinda not very attractive, though, so I kept looking around for a better donor. I mean, if Marybitch can do it, why not me? But Porky got the wrong idea. And then Swain got the wrong idea. All the jealousy, it got really unpleasant.”

Emma came up with another direct question. “Think he killed his dad? Over you?”

“Little Porky? Oh, no, no, no, he'd never do a thing like that. It had to be Swain's ex. Who else, right? That's what I told the police.” Zephyr leaned forward to turn on the truck's radio. “Marybitch came in the afternoon with a gun, and she'd have killed him then, but everybody stopped her.”

“But Swain wasn't shot.” Emma snapped off the radio. “He was stabbed. That would take a person with more strength than Marybeth has, don't you think?”

“Rage,” Zephyr said sagely. “It gives you superstrength. And now his kids will get enough of his money to rescue the company before it sinks. I'm not getting a cent, either. That's everything Mary­bitch wanted, right? Me with nothing from Swain, and her kids getting the cash?”

So Zephyr knew the terms of Swain's last will. And from the sounds of it, all the children had a financial motive to kill their father, if they were trying to save Starr Industries from its downward spiral. I asked, “Even Porky gets something from Swain?”

“Yeah, Porky, too. He gets a share of Starr Industries, but he doesn't know it yet,” she said. “I'm supposed to get the farm, but—­well, I don't feel much like living in the place where my husband was killed.”

“It would be creepy,” Emma agreed.

Zephyr turned to me. “Mind if I stay with you for a little while?”

I felt the wave of nausea again, plus my head gave a dizzy whirl. But what could I do? Say no to the widow?

When we arrived at Blackbird Farm, I was dismayed to see that Michael's whole crew was back on duty at the bottom of the driveway. They had set up another security checkpoint—­standard operating procedure when the threat level reached whatever DefCon circumstances triggered all-­out alarm. The checkpoint consisted of two dark SUVs parked nose to nose to prevent anyone arriving at the farm without a thorough inquisition by the posse.