Not Happily Married in Hollywood: Not in Hollywood Book 2 (3 page)

Thanks to Ramos I was soon heading towards my apartment,
just in time to make sure that my mom was on her plane home to Australia. Don’t
get me wrong, I love my mom. She dropped everything to come to LA and nurse me
back to health two months ago, and she hadn’t wavered in looking after me. I
love that about my mom. She is completely devoted to her kids and in the first
few days after I got shot, I have to admit there’s a part of me that enjoyed
having her take care of me. That being said, two months later, I was kind of
over it. What was, in the beginning, comforting, was beginning to smother and
much as I loved the woman, I needed to get her on that plane tonight. Driving
up to the apartment I saw my mom chatting merrily away to Miss Betsy, the owner
and sometimes maintenance person of the complex that I live in. The two of them
had bonded during my recovery period and I had a feeling that I would be having
a serious conversation with Miss Betsy about what information could be shared
with my mother during the weekly phone calls which I knew were now going to
happen between the two women.

“Hi Mom” I said as I got out of my car.

“Hi honey, I was worried you were going to be late. Then I
remembered how desperate you are to get rid of me.”

“I wouldn’t say desperate.” I smiled at her. “Maybe just
wildly enthusiastic.”

My mom stuck her tongue out at me. Sometimes she seems to
have the wisdom of the ages and at other times the woman acts like she is in
kindergarten. Looking at her, you wouldn’t pick her as my mother with her
blonde hair, blue eyes, petite slim figure and bubbly personality. I am not
overly tall but I feel like I dwarf the woman. With my brown hair, gray eyes
and serious disposition I am more my father’s daughter. My younger sister Katie
is like my mom. They are just people who walk into a room and ten minutes later
have great friends who are planning on going away on holiday together. I am
more likely to end up as agony aunt to some poor woman who’s just found out that
her husband is cheating on her. Not sure what it is about me but I must give
out some sympathetic vibe that people decide to dump all their problems on. My
brother Jamie ended up a combination of the best of my parents. That being said
he was also a teenage boy so that wonderful personality was currently hidden
underneath layers of hormones and angst, only occasionally making itself known.
I still missed seeing him though. The only downside to working on the other
side of the world. Not easy to pop in to see them when you are looking at a
twenty four hour flight.

“Are you ready to get going?” I asked brightly, realizing
suddenly that the back of my eyes were prickling with heat. I shoved my
sunglasses back on and went to grab her bags. No way could I let that woman
know that I was about to start crying because I was going to miss my mommy.
First sign of weakness and she would change her mind and I’d have her here for
another month. I loved the woman but I needed a break.

Standing at the airport a couple of hours later, hugging my
mother goodbye, I felt those tears come back.

“I love you Mom, thanks for everything you did for me.”

My mom smiled that beautiful smile that she reserves for the
moment when her children actually thank her for one of the many sacrifices she
makes for them.

“You’re my baby girl, I’d walk through fire for you” she
said into my hair as she hugged me fiercely.

She started to walk away and then stopped and turned.

“I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you this” she said,
“but you’re a smart girl and you need to know.”

She grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed tightly.

“A couple of days ago your father called. Paul went out to
see him at the farm.”

She searched my face intently looking for my reaction. All I
was thinking was that I hoped he wore a full suit of armor. My dad hated my ex-fiancé
with a passion he reserved for politicians and people who talked in the movies.

Obviously thinking that it was safe to go on, my mum
continued.

“He said he made a mistake, he should never have let you
go.”

“He didn’t let me go” I said. “He dumped me when I needed
him most.”

Look at that, the bitterness was still there.

“I know sweetheart. I’m not saying that you should do
anything. I’m giving you the information. Toss it aside if you want, but he may
try to contact you at some point. I thought it was only fair that you should be
prepared.”

Right there, that is my mom. She will try to protect you
from anything that comes your way, but if she knew there was something coming
that she couldn’t protect you from, she would give you every weapon in her
arsenal to protect yourself.

I hugged her again. “I’m okay Mom, don’t worry about me.
Have a good flight and give Dad, Katie and Jamie all my love. Tell them I miss
them so much.”

“I will” she said and I could see the tears glistening in
her eyes.

Well at least I wasn’t the only one on the verge of crying.
With that she walked away.

I got back in the car and headed home on autopilot, feeling
numb. When I got to my apartment I couldn’t make myself get out of the car so I
stopped and rested my head on the steering wheel. How could Paul do that? I
took in a shaky deep breath. Since that day two years ago when Paul let me down
I have never looked back and I wasn’t going to start today. I doubt Paul would
even recognize me now. I was no longer anything like the girl he originally
asked to marry him.

I was startled by a sudden tapping on my window. Looking up
I saw the concerned face of one of my neighbors. Sean was a sixteen year old
kid that I’d met a couple of months ago. His mother’s boyfriend had tossed him
out and he’d been living on the streets when I met him. Small and skinny for
his age, he had a crazy mop of red hair. He reminded me of my little brother
Jamie and I couldn’t handle the thought of what could happen to him on the
streets. Next thing I knew I’d ended up with him sleeping on my couch. After I
got shot and my mom came to stay, I moved into one of the larger apartments
with two bedrooms and Sean ended up staying in my old one bedroom apartment.
The owner of the building, Miss Betsy, put Sean to work with maintenance to pay
for his accommodation. We had also organized that he go back to school. Between
Miss Betsy and I, we made sure that he was fed, did his homework and went to
school. Between us we had become family. Not the ideal situation, but
considering his other options included foster care or the streets, it was the
best we could come up with.

“Are you okay?” he asked, a worried look in his eyes.

Unfortunately a side effect of my getting shot was that Sean
was now perpetually worried about me. I was constantly being asked how I felt,
whether I needed anything or if there was any way he could help me.

“I’m fine” I said with a smile. “Just missing my mom.”

Sean looked skeptical. I wasn’t surprised. I’ve been told
that I am a shocking liar and Sean is a perceptive kid. Also when my mom found
out about Sean’s background, the poor boy had been subjected to her special
brand of motherly love, which could on occasion be smothering. I think he liked
my mom, but the day he found her ironing his underwear was one that I don’t
think he has yet recovered from.

As I opened my car door and got out I realized that Sean
hadn’t been alone when I pulled up.

“Trudie” Detective Griffin said as he walked over to us.

“Detective Griffin” I nodded back to him, crossing my arms.

Hey, I know it was a defensive move but I was stuck with it
until he turned away.

“I need to do a walk through at the Wesson property and was hoping
you would help me” he said.

“Why me?” I asked mutinously. “I’ve only been there two
weeks, I wouldn’t know the property well enough to tell you anything.”

“Maybe, but you were there the night before, from the looks
of it Eric was dead within hours of you being there.”

I looked at him suspiciously.

“Please” he grumbled.

“See,” I said graciously, “you only had to ask nicely, and
I’m happy to help you.”

“You don’t even try to make things easy do you?” he asked.

“This is me making things easy” I said as we walked to his
car. “If I was trying to be difficult there is no way I would be going anywhere
with you.”

The car was silent for a while as we drove.

“Is this Ramos’s car?” I asked.

“No” said Griffin, “why?”

“This car is surprisingly clean, I would not have picked it
for a male cop’s car.” I said as I twisted around to see if there was a mess in
the back seat.

“That is the conversation you want to have?” Griffin asked,
looking a little put out as we pulled up to Adele Wesson’s house.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Nothing at all” he said as he got out of the car.

Undoing the seatbelt and opening my own door I looked at
him. I swear, they say women are moody and unpredictable but one of these days
somebody is going to work out that men are just as bad. I didn’t have a clue
most of the time. That being said I was enjoying the view. The man seemed to
have no communication skills whatsoever but following him to the house I could
see that he still filled out a pair of jeans very nicely. All of a sudden
Griffin stopped abruptly. Not having seen him stop, and being a bit distracted
by the way those jeans were molded to his legs, I ran into his back and bounced
off.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I prayed that the warm sensation that I could feel was the
late afternoon sun and not the blush of embarrassment that I knew was crawling
up my face. I really hoped he wouldn’t work out what I had been looking at. I
peeked up and wanted to groan. From the smile starting to spread across his
face, I could tell that he knew exactly where my eyes had been.

“I tripped” I mumbled.

“Uh huh” he said, that grin now spread wide.

“So what am I looking for?” I asked. I wanted to kick myself
when I saw the way his eyebrow quirked up, and that knowing smile of his didn’t
lessen.

“The walk through” I clarified, “you asked me to help you
with the walk through. What exactly is it that I am looking for?”

Griffin paused for a couple of seconds, just to torment me
I’m sure of it, and then turned around.

“We need to go through and I want you to tell me if there is
anything obviously out of place or catches your eye. I need you to think back
to last night and see if there is anything different that will give us an idea
of anyone else being in here. We can start with you taking me through what you
did this morning when you arrived. Give me a good sense of what happened and
what you saw.”

Opening the front door he waved me on ahead.

“Well then” I said, “when I walked in the first thing that I
noticed was the silence. This house is not a quiet one, usually there is music
on or a television going in the background. This house is small compared to
some that I’ve worked in so rooms don’t feel isolated. Eric doesn’t, I mean, he
didn’t seem to work. I think he called himself an entrepreneur but I never saw
any evidence that he was actually working at anything. Usually when I got here
in the morning the coffee machine was going and Adele would be awake. Sometimes
she’d be doing yoga in the back yard or if she had been up a while she would
have already started work. Adele was always an early riser.”

“Did she have any trouble with sleeping?” Griffin asked.

“I think she did” I replied. “Sometimes when I got here you
could see the dark rings under her eyes.”

“You said Adele and Eric slept in different rooms, how bad
were the problems in the marriage?” Griffin asked.

“The guy was a jerk” I said. “Adele was the sweetest,
kindest person I knew. In my job I cop a lot of abuse and insanity from some of
the clients, but Adele was a dream to work for. I personally have no idea why
she married Eric. From what I understand she adored her first husband. She’d
talk about him sometimes and you could just see how much she loved him. I think
when he died she was so wrapped in her grief and loss that she was easy
pickings for Eric. Despite the fact she lives very simply the woman is very
wealthy. She just doesn’t care about the money. Eric on the other hand really
cared about the money.”

“Do you think she was capable of killing him to get rid of
him?” Griffin asked.

“No” I answered quickly.

“You seem pretty sure of that” Griffin replied.

“I am, I cannot believe that she is capable of killing
anyone,” I said confidently.

“What about you?” Griffin asked.

I looked at him. “Me, you’re going to ask me if I killed
him.”

“The man was sexually harassing you in a job you loved. Jobs
are scarce these days. You needed the money and you yourself said the marriage
was a mess. You would be doing Adele Wesson a favor.”

“Yes, because killing unwanted spouses is just another
service I provide for my clients, along with diary scheduling and dry-cleaning
runs.” I said sarcastically.

“Okay so if neither you nor Adele Wesson killed Eric.” He
peered at me and I returned the look with what I hoped was an expression that
told him what I thought of that theory. “Then who else would want to?”

“Take your pick, former staff members of Adele’s, angry
husbands, irate fathers, every woman he had ever come across. The man was
physically incapable of keeping it in his pants. He was almost a caricature of
the worst that women think of men. For the last two weeks he had hassled me
constantly. I have never seen a man work so hard to get into the pants of a
woman he had absolutely no interest in, outside of irritating his wife. It
seemed the more that Adele liked having me working for her, the more effort he
put into it. That being said, if he closed his eyes there is no way that he
would be able to describe what I looked like.”

“Do you often get that problem?” asked Griffin.

“What problem?” I replied.

“Sexually harassed at work.”

“Like I said Monique gets the difficult jobs and out of
those difficult jobs you have the ones that border on painful. I have proved to
Monique that I can handle those jobs. I find them challenging and I get paid
very well for them. In answer to your question as to whether I was afraid of
losing the job here, Monique has a waiting list of clients who she would be
happy to pass me to. Last night I was actually considering quitting from this
job because I was finding Eric’s attention more insistent than I had
anticipated. I assumed he would give up way before now but he was getting more
persistent with each rejection.”

“Thought of giving in?” he asked

“No, I can definitely say that I was not interested in
giving in to him. The more I knew him, the less attractive he became. He was
like a petulant child that wasn’t getting what he wanted. Everything else being
equal, he was definitely not my type.”

“Really, so what is your type?” asked Griffin leaning back
against a wall.

“I’ll know him when I see him” I said, definitely not
wanting to get into this with him.

“Once I’d been through all the rooms and determined nobody
was here, I went up to Adele’s bedroom” I said changing the subject hurriedly.

Griffin followed me towards the back of the house where the
bedrooms were. Opening the door I was relieved to see the room was relatively
untouched by the police. Everything seemed to be in its place, exactly as it
always was. The bed was immaculately made and at that I stopped.

“The bed looks wrong” I said.

“Why, what’s wrong with it? Looks like it’s fine to me.”

“Yes, it looks perfect, that’s what’s wrong. I made this bed
yesterday.”

“You made the bed” Griffin said slowly.

“Yes, I made the bed. The housekeeper that Adele has doesn’t
live on the property, she comes in about the same time that I do. One of her
jobs is making the bed. She didn’t come in yesterday. One of her kids came down
with chickenpox and had to stay home from school, so she called and we expected
not to see her for a week. Adele is useless at all kinds of housework,
especially at the moment when she’s in the middle of writing. Inspiration hits
and she forgets everything else. I even have to stop her to eat and take
bathroom breaks. With the housekeeper not being here for a week, I helped out
yesterday with those things that she would normally do, including making
Adele’s bed. That is not the way I made Adele’s bed. I am not that much of a
perfectionist, I mean seriously, look at those corners” I marveled.

“They look fine to me” Griffin said, “That’s how I do my
corners.”

“I am not critiquing the way the bed was made, I am saying I
made it yesterday morning, but not like that. Between then and now someone else
made the bed. Why would anyone do that?”

“Good question” said Griffin. “I don’t think the crime scene
techs did this room. Might be a good idea to get them back in here to have a look
to see if they find something. Anything else look out of place?”

“Not that I can see” I said. “It all looks pretty much the
same as it did yesterday when I was in here, other than the bed.”

“I want you to have a look at Eric’s bedroom now” Griffin
said.

“No point” I said. “This morning was the first time I went
into the bedroom, and that was just because I couldn’t find Adele anywhere else
in the house. My instincts were screaming at me that something was very wrong,
I wouldn’t have any idea what Eric’s room was supposed to look like.”

“Really, you’ve never been in that room?” Griffin asked.

“Nope, avoided it like the plague” I said cheerfully. “Considering
the way Eric had been acting, that was one risk I was not willing to take.”

“Did you see anything this morning that looked out of
place?”

“Besides Adele actually having spent the night in his room,
no.”

“Okay” said Griffin, “is there anything else that you wish
to tell me about that could help with this investigation.”

“You still think I’m keeping something from you?” I asked.

“Not exactly” he said, at least having the good grace to
look embarrassed, “just sometimes things will come back to you at the strangest
times. I need to know that you will give me that information.”

“I don’t deliberately set out to make your life difficult” I
said.

“Yet you do it so well” Griffin said with just a touch of
sarcasm.