Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery (13 page)

On Halsey’s street, a winding road up a leafy canyon, there were dozens of reporters surrounding her house, at least ten vans, with their telescoping uplinks up high, blocking the street, and a madhouse of photographers standing in groups on her lawn. Just another day in Beverly Glen.

When we pulled up in front of the house in the disco-Hummer, paparazzi hell broke loose. I took the large box of freshly baked brownies from Malulu—she had baked 150—and instructed her to stay inside the limo with Killer until Drew and I returned.

“You no need bodyguard?” she asked, staring at the group of reporters crowding around our limo, hurt.

“Watch your soaps,” I suggested, pointing at the array of screens.

Drew said, “I have an idea to get us into the house.”

After Barry walked around the Hummer and opened our door, we stepped outside and faced the crowd with smiles.

Drew said, “We brought you hardworking guys something.” She held up Malulu’s perfectly wrapped package.

As four dozen starving paparazzi gratefully ripped into the box, Drew and I hurried up the walkway and into Halsey’s house unscathed.

A
rriving empty-handed, Drew and I were let into the tall, sunlit entry hall of Halsey’s ultramodern, steel-and-glass home by her sister, thirteen-year-old Steffi. We couldn’t help but stare. She’d grown a lot since we’d last seen her. Tanned, and with the same wide-set, oval eyes and fresh smile as her late sister, Steffi Hamilton looked so much like Halsey it was eerie. Steffi had white streaks bleached into her dark hair and sported a tattoo of a mermaid on her shoulder, but, despite that, anyone could see she would be a beauty. She was almost as tall as Halsey, but standing in front of us in tiny white shorts and a skinny, blue T-shirt, she was wafer-thin where Halsey had been curvy.

A man’s voice, from the back of the house, bellowed, “Steffi? Who the hell is at the door?”

“Daddy,” she screamed, without even turning around, so that her voice thundered in our faces. “Shut up. I’m here with Max and Drew Taylor.” Then she smiled at Drew and touched the bottom of her gauzy shirt. “Hey, this is real nice. Is it Dolce?”

“Actually, Nordstrom Rack,” Drew said.

Steffi nodded seriously. “Cool.”

Into the large, slate-tiled entry hall came Jimmy Hamilton, his pale, pink dress shirt, with the top three buttons unbuttoned, tucked into expensive jeans. He was in his stocking feet and was carrying, I noticed, a bar glass filled with half-melted ice. “Well, hey there, Max. Drew. Isn’t this nice of you to drop by and visit.”

I cleared my throat. “We wanted to tell you how devastated we are. If you need anything, Jimmy, you or Dakota, please just let me know.”

He smiled. “That’s kind. Yeah, that’s real kind.” He stood there looking at us, and the longer he smiled, the more uncomfortable we became. “Of course,” he finally said, “if you really wanted to help, you might have seen to it my little girl Halsey didn’t die.” He shook his head. “But, no. You weren’t too helpful when it really might have done our girl some good.”

“Now, wait a minute.” With all the years of escalating problems to which Halsey had fallen victim, did he actually think that I, in thirty seconds on the air, could have stopped the momentum of Halsey’s freight-train rush toward tragedy?

Drew grabbed my elbow and whispered a warning, “Mom,” through her polite visiting-the-grieving-relatives smile.

Jimmy smiled his little smile. “I’ll wait all the minutes in the world if you can give me my daughter back.”

Steffi pouted. “Well, I’m right here, Daddy. Duh.”

Jimmy said, “My famous daughter, I mean, kitten. Can they
give us Halsey back? Her mama is crying in the back bedroom, and I can’t even get the woman to come out and fix me a drink. Our whole family is in misery. So if Max Taylor wants to help, she should have done something at the Oscars, shouldn’t she?”

Drew began backing up, pulling me gently by the elbow. “So sorry, Mr. Hamilton. I loved your daughter too. But now Mom and I have to be leaving.”

Jimmy looked at Drew, then hit his head in an exaggerated gesture. “Oh, yeah. You gotta take your hopped-up mama to go dry out somewhere, isn’t that your racket? I watched the whole lousy story on
Nightline,
who, by the way, were supposed to devote their entire hour to our dead Halsey. Did you know that? The producer promised me. One solid hour. But, no. They just had to cover your fucking recovery story, Max. So thanks to you, Halsey loses again, doesn’t she?”

I took a deep breath. The man had been drinking too much, no matter how early in the day it was, and the man had just lost his daughter. Love and guilt. The horrible what-ifs. And let’s not forget—the loss of a family’s source of income. Grieving in Hollywood could get twisted.

“Well,” I said to Steffi, “please tell your mother we stopped by. Very sorry.”

Jimmy roared at us, “She wasn’t an easy girl to raise. You know that, Max. My girls are headstrong, and let me tell you, you just can’t beat that out of them. Halsey was over eighteen, and she had no idea of how much trouble she could get herself into. The men, all those damn parties. You think it’s all my fault, don’t you? That’s what everybody is thinking. Where the hell was her dad when Halsey needed him the most?”

My hand had been reaching for the doorknob, but I stopped.
That was actually quite a pertinent question. Drew shoved me gently, trying to keep me moving, but I wanted to hear what else would spill out of Jimmy Hamilton. “So,” I asked, “where were you, Jimmy?”

“I was inside the goddamned Kodak Theatre, that’s where I was,” he shouted. “With Halsey’s mama and all the other goddamned nominees. When Halsey didn’t show up on time at the red carpet like she was supposed to, how the hell did we know what was wrong? She must have just chickened out, that’s what we thought. Don’t you think I called her cell phone like every five minutes? She didn’t pick up.”

“But,” I said, “while all the rest of the world thought Halsey was still in rehab, you knew she was coming to the Oscars.” He should have been with her, I thought. Who would leave a vulnerable girl alone?

“Of course I knew,” Jimmy yelled. “I planned this whole big entrance back to Hollywood for her, didn’t I? I had the dress deal and the limo deal and all that stuff nailed down. And I made sure everyone we were working with kept their mouths shut so her big surprise entrance there on the red carpet would be a fucking miracle.”

“So you’re the one who made it all happen.”

He wanted to be admired for managing the hype machine, but I could only see extra pressure placed on a girl who was already fragile.

“Hell,” he continued, “I’m the one who told Halsey she was going to give just one exclusive interview out there on the carpet before the Oscar show started. Less is more, I told her. Make the public drool for your next words.”

Steffi, standing to the side, spoke up. “I always listen to you, Daddy. I don’t give any inter—”

Jimmy didn’t let the girl get the whole sentence out. He put his hand up and, still looking hard at Drew and me, continued, “So where the hell was Halsey, our little Oscar-nominated star, that night? She stood us all up. Her mama and I went on inside the hall and took our seats. What else could I do? I figured I would just have to pick up her Oscar statuette myself when her name got called.”

But she didn’t win. Jimmy Hamilton was one disappointed man. All that bitterness was eating him up. Perhaps when the truth of his girl’s death sank in, when he was over his anger at how the world had cheated Jimmy Hamilton, he might finally be ready to cry over the life that had been lost, the daughter who would never come home.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Jimmy,” I said, and whether he thought I meant about Halsey’s Best Actress Oscar or the end of her life, I figured he could interpret my words any way that most mattered to him. Then Drew and I left.

Outside the house, in the dazzling sunshine, standing in the street, a field reporter from a New York tabloid called, “Max, Drew, those were the best brownies I ever ate.” The gaggle of cameramen laughed and agreed as Drew led us down the front walk to the waiting limo. Then he said, “Help us out here, ladies. We’ll make sure you look good. But give us something. Did you see the family? How are they holding up?”

I figured Drew and I had just absorbed about fifteen minutes of abuse—why not talk to the press? We stood where he suggested, in the good light, and a dozen sleepy broadcast stringers came to life and trained their cameras on us.

“It is horribly sad,” I said into a dozen microphones, my voice in its lower registers. “But they are a close family. They are to
gether. They will get through this unimaginable pain. But let’s send them all our prayers.”

Drew kept a straight face in front of the cameras, but almost giggled as she and I entered the limo, with Barry shutting the door behind us. “Class.”

“Never try to stoop lower than the lowlifes,” I advised her. “Believe me, it simply cannot be done. Take the high road.”

Drew saluted. As she and I settled ourselves onto the glaring faux-zebra cushions, my darling Killer wagged his little tail in ferocious happiness. I asked, “Did you miss Mommy?”

Malulu smiled and said, “The men outside love my brownies, Mrs. Livingston. I watched them eat every one.”

It was always best to travel with gifts, always, and I thanked Malulu, again, for her hard work. Who knew when we’d need the celebrity press to be on our side? The story with Halsey was far from over, and in the frenzy to broadcast new speculations and rumors, the reporting could bounce many unflattering ways. What were those words Halsey had said?
She didn’t even blame Drew
. I shuddered and put that outrageous thought out of my mind. As we pulled away, the stringer from
Us Weekly
waved, and I waved back.

By giving one short statement to the press and sharing one measly box of brownies, the vultures now owed us one, and we might need the favor.

I had one more errand to attend to, and then, I realized, I would be heading to Wonders. I began thinking of all the questions I should ask once I got there. Questions about Halsey and Burke. In just a few minutes, we slid out of the hills and, I realized, looking out the large, tinted windows, had arrived at the office of the V-E-T.

I gave Malulu a significant look, as we had been through this trauma before. She may or may not have caught my signal.

Barry pulled the gigantic stretch SUV into the small lot that served the Beverly Hills Veterinary Clinic and also an upscale Thai restaurant, both of which were located on a quiet side street off Wilshire. When the vehicle glided to a stop, I held my breath. The windows were tinted, after all, so the view was obscured, and I had great hope that our previous unhappy visits might be forgotten.

But Killer, alas, is no fool.

He had no intention of visiting the V-E-T that day. Or any day. As soon as the limo came to a halt, my tiny Yorkie started squirming and pulling this way and that.

He really is the smartest dog in the world.

Malulu didn’t want to crush him, of course, and in Killer’s frenzy to get free of her grip, his little legs wildly dug into her sides as if he were trying to retrieve a favorite bone. She loosened her fingers for just a millisecond, but that was enough. Killer broke free and began ping-ponging around the enormous interior of the limo, bounding off the lava lamps, the ebony bar console, and miles of fake zebra-skin.

“Killer!” I shouted, as my tiny darling flew past me. “It’s okay, sweetheart!”

Unaware of the chaos in the backseat, Barry chose that exact moment to open the limo door, presumably to let Malulu take Killer out, but at that point, my freaked-out bundle of fluff sailed right out the open door, never even hitting the pavement until about ten feet past the astonished chauffeur.

T
wo hours later, we were all completely exhausted. Malulu and Barry had fanned out across Wilshire Boulevard after having checked out every single building and alleyway on this side, while Drew and I had literally bent down and looked under every car parked in a six-block area.

“Mom,” Drew said, looking at her watch. “I have been getting calls all morning from Wonders. They think you are a no-show. Even our interventionist thinks you’ve gone into deep denial again. I know this is breaking your heart about Killer, but maybe we should leave. Just hear me out. We can be in Pasadena in an hour. Malulu will find Killer…”

I stared at her.

“Okay, I know. You can’t leave. But Killer might hide out for
hours and hours. And the time…” Drew shook her head in frustration. “Don’t you realize that Burke is just hanging by a thread? I’ve gotten six texts already. The police are looking for him, Mom. They’ve been over to his dad’s office. They went to his sister’s house in Calabasas. They’ve gone out to Manhattan Beach and talked to all his friends that have houses there. And now that Killer has run off, you are clearly unable to focus on our plan to help Burke.”

We were seated again in the back of the limo, taking a break from the search, sharing a bottle of Voss water from the minifridge in one of the bars. I held a cut-crystal glass filled with ice and water against my hot forehead. “We’ll find Killer pretty soon. God willing. He’s a very good boy. I don’t believe for a minute he would run into the street. He’s probably nearby, just calming down.” I prayed that what I was saying was true. He was a good boy. But the V-E-T had unnerved him.

“I hope so,” Drew said, sipping straight from the clear-glass bottle.

“And I promised I would help your friend. A promise is a promise.”

“Thank you, Mom.”

“Hey, Ms. Taylor,” said Barry, poking his head into the parked Hummer limo in the lot behind the vet’s, where we were sitting with the back doors wide-open. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your little guy. We’ve been up and down these streets like a hundred times, but we’ll keep looking. Your bodyguard, Malulu, has been going door-to-door, telling everyone to call her cell number if they see him, but nobody has. I told her to take a break, but she just won’t stop.”

“They build them hearty in Samoa,” I said.

Barry nodded. “Anyway, I’m going right back out. I just wanted to let you know what’s up.” He ran his hand through his thick, brown hair. No matter how many hours he’d been chasing around in the heat of the day, his gel stood up to the torture. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he said for the third time that morning. “I could kick myself. I should have grabbed Killer when I had a shot. Damn.”

“Here, sit down. Take a rest.”

“We’ll find him soon,” he said, climbing into the back of the limo and sitting opposite us, where I suggested.

Killer didn’t want to be found. That was clear. I wouldn’t put it past the dog to wait us out until after the vet’s business hours were over. At 5:05 p.m. we’d see Killer saunter up to the limo. I smiled to myself, hoping I was right.

“Let’s talk about something else. Something that will help get my mind off poor Killer.”

Barry nodded. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

I said nonchalantly, “When you drove Halsey Hamilton to the Oscars, was she drinking or doing drugs in the backseat here?”

He blinked. “No, ma’am. No. Not even a beer. Hell, I already told all this to the police and to my boss. I cleared out every bottle in the on-board bars before I went to pick her up. Mr. Hamilton is the one who made the arrangements with my boss, and he was very clear about what he wanted, so I made damned sure the bar was G-rated. There was nothing in there but soft drinks and mineral waters and juice. Shit. She was doing just fine, Ms. Taylor. Ask the police. They checked it all out.”

Drew looked at me. “Then she must have been wasted before she got into the limo that night.” She turned to Barry. “Couldn’t you tell?”

Barry shook his head, not quite sure how to answer. “She looked great to me.”

I put my hand up. “Let’s start at the top. Where did you pick her up?”

“I went to get her in Pasadena at nine a.m.”

From Wonders. I wanted to ask more, but wasn’t sure how far he would go. “You don’t mind me asking?”

“Why should I? You’re human, right? Everyone is asking me about Halsey. My agent is working on a deal with
OK!
magazine, I think. It’s pretty hot.”

“Good for you. Then maybe you would tell us: did Halsey come out of Wonders with a guy?” Okay, it wasn’t an innocent question. I looked over at Drew, wearing her cream-colored peasant top over a pair of tight brown jeans, who suddenly realized where my question was casually leading. But what choice did I have? Drew wouldn’t believe anything bad about Burke until she faced a few cold, hard facts. Perhaps here was the first one.

“Halsey was alone,” he said.

Drew smiled at me and asked Barry, “Where did you drive Halsey when she left Wonders?”

“I took her home. To the house above Sunset. And then I just waited. That’s what I get paid to do.” He smiled.

“There must have been a lot of people coming and going to the house all day,” I said, and Drew gave me a glance.

He cleared his voice. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Ms. Taylor, but I may be signing a big-money deal with
OK!,
and I don’t
know how much more about it I should really be telling you. I mean, is this for your TV show or something?”

Drew moved across the center aisle and sat next to Barry. She said daintily, “Barry, if I were a driver who worked with celebrities, and I had managed, through my own negligence, to lose the tiny darling dog that meant more than life itself to my celebrity client, I would try to do everything in my power to distract that worried client. Everything. Wouldn’t you?”

Barry looked at the carpet and mumbled, “I’m awfully sorry about all this, Miss Taylor, I am,” as I mouthed to my daughter,
Class.

“So,” I said briskly, “who did you see going into Halsey’s house that afternoon?”

“Well,” he said, thinking about it, “kind of the usual crew. I’ve driven for her a few times before. Halsey’s hair and makeup people came in. And some fashion stylist carting in a bunch of new dresses. Plus there were other folks taking care of the rest of the family. You know. And then a limo came to take the rents to the awards.”

I looked at Drew and she interpreted, “The
parents.
”

Probably all part of Jimmy Hamilton’s master plan for maximum impact: Halsey arrives at the red carpet alone in this mammoth limo. “So then all the other people went home.”

“Well, not her friends,” Barry said. “That guy she used to date was still there, I’m pretty sure.”

I stopped pouring Barry a glass of water and stared. “What guy?”

Barry smiled, reaching for the water. “I don’t know his name. But he drives a little Audi sports car.”

“An Audi?”

Drew looked up at me. “That Audi could belong to anyone, Mom. I mean, they sell hundreds of them. Thousands.”

I pulled my bag open and withdrew my wallet. As I had been packing for rehab this morning, I found a picture of Drew and Burke from two Christmases ago, the happy new couple, and folded it in half so that only Burke’s image showed. I turned this shot of Burke, smiling into the camera with his arm around an unidentified shoulder, toward Barry. “Was this the guy who was driving the Audi?”

Barry took a look. Drew held her breath. I waited.

Barry said, “Sorry. I hardly looked at the guy when he went into the house. But I think the Audi guy I saw was not as big as this dude.”

Drew exhaled and said, “So, let’s get back to when Halsey was leaving for the Oscars.”

I exhaled, too. This might have been enough. If Drew discovered Burke was with Halsey on the afternoon of her death, it would prove he had lied to Drew, perhaps lied about everything. But we weren’t there yet.

On the other hand, Burke drove an Audi TT. It wasn’t a rare car, but it wasn’t that common either. In time, I reminded myself, we would stumble across something really conclusive, and my dear daughter’s eyes would be pried open. I would stay focused on helping her see the truth, even if it meant that I had to check into rehab to do it.

Drew picked up the questions. “So what was the story with Halsey’s missing evening gown?”

Barry shook his head, his big smile reappearing. “Making a big entrance, I guess. Didn’t matter what that lady wore, she
looked hot. Going to show her dad something, that’s what she said to me. But she came out of the house really late. I had to concentrate on just getting us to the Kodak. I mean, I was driving on Sunset Boulevard going seventy. But we made it.”

None of it made sense. Halsey wasn’t drinking. She didn’t seem high. She was playing a game with her outfit. My goodness, if the girl hadn’t actually died the other night, all of this would actually be believable. I squinted at Barry, wondering if he was a much better actor than I’d given him credit for.

Malulu came up to us, huffing a little as she reached the open door of the limo. “Mrs. L. I am sure that Killer didn’t get far. I think it is better if you all stay in one spot. I think Killer might return here after his little walk-around. And he will not be too frightened if he sees it is only me coming to look for him.”

“Thanks, Malulu, but you need to rest. I’ll go looking now.”

Malulu gave a snort. “As if,” she muttered, then took off at a trot down the side street. Barry, not to be outdone by a tall, large woman in a bright-colored pantsuit, took off after her. But Malulu stopped, turned Barry around, and ordered him to stay behind. Sheepishly, he returned to the limo and, leaving us to our privacy, got into the driver’s seat.

Drew had been quiet.

“What’s the matter, Drewie? We’ll find Killer. He’s just—”

“It’s not Killer, Mom. It’s Halsey. That day of the Oscars. Something doesn’t seem right.”

I reviewed what we’d just heard. “Isn’t this just what we thought must have happened? She stayed behind while her parents took their own limo to the event. She must have taken some pills or been drinking.” I left out, for the moment, any question of who the young man in the Audi was or what he might have had to
do with Halsey’s erratic behavior. And death. Let this all sink in for Drew in its own time.

“Mom,” Drew said, reaching for my arm, her eyes bright. “Wait, wait, wait a second.”

I waited.

She looked at me. “Remember when Halsey’s dad said he’d been calling Halsey all night, trying to find out why she was so late to the Oscars?”

I nodded.

“Maybe they were fighting, you know, and when she saw his phone number on the incoming calls, she chose to ignore him.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed. “Unless she left her phone at home that night.”

“But remember? She texted me right before her car pulled up to the theater. To arrange our exclusive interview.”

“Of course.”

“So the question is—where is that phone now?”

It was curious. With the minuscule garments Halsey had on that night, we’d have certainly seen a small, rectangular, phone-size bulge somewhere on her if she’d been carrying a phone. And she hadn’t had an evening bag. So…

Drew looked around the interior of the limo, taking in the dizzying sight of animal print gone wild, along with the shiny surfaces of two bars. “In here?”

I hit the remote-control button to open the privacy window, hit the intercom switch, and said, “Barry. Could you tell me one more thing? Who cleans the limo after an event?”

He turned in his seat to talk to us. “I do, Ms. Taylor. Why?”

“Did you find a phone when you were cleaning up after Halsey’s last trip?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, his eyes clear and his voice steady. “Not too much in the limo that night. Some papers and junk like that. Empty water bottle. Not much, really.”

I thanked him and closed the window again, giving us a chance to confer in private. Drew was getting excited. “Halsey must have had her phone with her in the limo that night. I know it. Her little Prada phone—she loved that thing. They’ve only come out in Europe right now, but she got one anyway, of course. A gift from some royal sheikh, she said. Covered in diamonds. Custom.”

I got down onto the floor of the limo. “Okay, if it’s covered in diamonds, I’m searching for it.”

Down on all fours, looking behind every banquette, I rubbed my hands over the thick, white shag carpet. Drew looked at me and sighed. She sank down on the floor and took up the hunt on the far side of the limo. She giggled, “This is absurd.”

I squeezed my hand far behind the bar, where it was pushed up against the wall. I felt something hard, pulled at it, and came up with an ancient pretzel. “If I knew any of Malulu’s curse words in Samoan, I’d use them.”

“Mom, this limo has been vacuumed within an inch of its life. I can’t even find lint behind the seats.” She sat down on the shag carpet.

I sat down too and faced her. “Drew. You have Halsey’s phone number. Call it.”

She looked at me, and in an instant she pulled out her phone and hit a few buttons.

We waited in silence.

And we heard nothing. No little ring. No little tune. Nothing. I looked at Drew, and she pointed to her phone. “It’s connecting, I hear her ringback thingie.”

Damn. This type of thing worked so well in the movies.

Drew flipped her phone closed.

“Wait.” I reached up on the seat for the remote control. I hit the button for the privacy window, which noiselessly opened.

Barry turned in his driver’s seat and looked back at us, now sitting on the floor. “Is there something I can get you, Ms. Taylor?” he asked, suppressing a smile.

“No, no.” Then I casually gestured to Drew, pointing to her cell phone. Pointing. And pointing.

She finally pushed the redial button.

In ten more seconds something amazing happened. We could faintly hear the muffled opening notes of a far-off cell phone.

“Rihanna,” Drew said, listening hard. “‘Shut Up and Drive.’”