Not Talented in Hollywood: Not in Hollywood Book 3 (4 page)

By mutual agreement the three of us ended up in my apartment
breaking open a tub of ice cream.

“So” said Crystal breaking the silence. “Were you planning
on telling us exactly why the cops think you killed the director?”

Edwin studied the tub intently.

“Edwin” I said gently. “We need to know if we are going to
help you.”

Edwin dropped his spoon and looked away.

“The cops think that I killed her because she said some
things about my acting. They think I killed her in a fit of wounded pride and
rage.”

“Why, would they think that?” Crystal asked as she scooped
up some ice cream. “Catarina had a go at everyone. What makes you so special?”

Edwin looked discomfited. “Yes, but I was the idiot who
slept with her.”

Crystal stopped eating and stared at him. Deliberately she
put her spoon down and got up off the floor where we had made ourselves
comfortable. Without looking at us she left the room and I heard the front door
open and close. Edwin’s head dropped back against the couch cushion.

“I didn’t want to tell her.”

“I can understand why.” I shook my head. “What were you
thinking sleeping with her?”

Edwin shrugged his shoulders. “It was one time, I don’t know
why I did it. She was there and she was willing. She kept telling me that she
could see a great actor in me. I know now it was all just a load of garbage,
but at the time I was feeling pretty low. Believe me I knew it was a mistake
straight away. Do you think Crystal will forgive me?”

“Of course she will” I said squeezing his hand. “It just
might take a bit of time for her to get her head around it.”

Of course it would be a period of time when she was going to
make Edwin miserable.

“So, is that the only reason the cops are looking at you for
the murder, the fact that you slept with her.”

Edwin nodded.

“How did the cops find out about it, if it only happened the
once.”

Edwin refused to look me in the eye.

“Seems she kept a diary which listed all the men she slept
with and had comments and a rating system.”

“That’s disturbing” I said.

I looked at him and when he looked back I quickly glanced
away.

Edwin sighed. “No, they didn’t tell me what my rating was or
what she wrote about me.”

“I wasn’t going to ask” I protested and Edwin raised an
eyebrow at me. “They must have other suspects then if she kept a diary of all
her…” my voice tapered off.

“Conquests” Edwin supplied dryly.

“I was going to say partners” I said defensively.

“Because that makes it sound so much better” Edwin said sarcastically.

“Do you want an argument with me?” I said starting to get
annoyed.

Edwin dropped his head back again. “No, I’m just mad at
myself for being so stupid. I’ve had a thing for Crystal for so long but I’ve
always just been in the friend zone. I guess I got to the point where I figured
that was all I’d ever be. Between thinking she could never be interested in me
and realizing that I was never going to make it as an actor, I started doing
some pretty stupid things and this was just one of them.”

I hated hearing him sound so defeated, it just didn’t sound
like the optimistic Edwin that I usually talked to.

“So what are you going to do about it?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Edwin looked perplexed.

“I mean, how about you suck it up and deal with the
situation in front of you.”

Edwin’s phone chose that moment to ring. He held it up and
waved it in front of me. “Saved by the proverbial bell.”

I smiled cheerlessly and went back to eating my ice cream.
After his call finished I looked at him expectantly.

“That was Catarina’s assistant, seems like the funeral is
being held tomorrow.”

“Already,” I queried, “don’t the police still have the body
for examination.”

“I don’t know, all I know is that the funeral is tomorrow.
Catarina’s assistant Peter is planning it and he’s trying to get as many people
there as he can.”

“Even though you’re a suspect,” I said slowly.

Edwin shrugged, “I said it might not be appropriate that I
be there, but I’ve worked with him and he insisted he knows the police have it
wrong and that I should have the opportunity to grieve for Catarina like
everyone else.”

I know I looked skeptical.

“He’s been with Catarina for years and from what I saw is
pretty devoted to her. He probably truly believes there will be people grieving
for her.”

“Do you want company?” I asked.

Edwin’s gratitude was palpable. “Thank you yes, I really
don’t want to turn up to that thing on my own, especially if people are
thinking that I could have killed her.”

After Edwin left I went to Crystal’s apartment and, using my
emergency key for a change, I opened the door. Sure enough she was in her room
burrowed under the covers. Grabbing hold of one end I gave it a yank to find
her curled up with streaks of tears down her face. Hardening myself to her
obvious distress I put my hands on my hips.

“I didn’t really think that hiding was your style.”

Crystal waved her hands around while gulping in air. I
waited until she could talk.

“He slept with her, I love him and he slept with her.”

I sat down on the bed.

“Have you told him you love him?”

Crystal paused and then shook her head.

“Didn’t you go out on a date just a couple of nights ago
with that artist freak who wanted to pose you with post it notes covering your
body and use you for his latest showing?”

“Well, yes” she said.

“So maybe having a go at Edwin over something he did before
you started showing all this interest in him is a little unfair.”

Crystal glared at me mutinously. “Number one, you are ignoring
your role as best friend. Regardless of how stupid my feelings are at this
point I don’t want logic. I want you to provide chocolate and agree with me
that he did the wrong thing. I’d do it for you.”

“I know you would, and with any other guy I would be right
there with you. But this is Edwin, who you have been in love with for ages.
Despite the fact you date like it’s a competition and whoever has the highest
number wins. If you play this wrong you could lose him and I know you don’t
want that.”

Crystal tossed her pillow at me halfheartedly.

“I know, I just… I’ve never been jealous, not with any guy
I’ve been out with and here I am hating a dead woman because he slept with
her.”

“Well”, I said standing up, you’ll need to get over it,
because tomorrow you and I are going to accompany Edwin to her funeral. We are
going to be appropriately respectful and somber and we will support our friend.
Are we clear?”

“Yes Mom” she said with a glint in her eye.

I sighed. “Now why would you go and insult me like that?”

Crystal grimaced. “Sorry, you’re really nothing like my mom.”

After the many stories Crystal had told me of her mother and
her many maternal failings I would hope not.

The next morning as the three of us entered the funeral home,
I was surprised at the small number of people there. Catarina’s assistant Peter
greeted us.

“Thank you so much for coming.” His eyes were shiny with
unshed tears as he clasped Edwin’s hands. His eyes widened as he saw Crystal.
In Hollywood, Crystal’s father is considered someone who can make and break
careers. In the social set she is considered pure gold so the fact that she had
turned up for Catarina’s funeral meant something. The fact she was there for
Edwin and not for Catarina didn’t come into it. She was there so that upped the
social tone of the funeral. It was all about appearances, even when you were
dead.

Looking around though, it would seem that appearances
weren’t exactly working for Catarina. There were a few of the actors that I
remembered from the play she had been directing. Sure enough, in the back of
the room keeping their eye on everyone attending were Detectives Griffin and
Ramos. Feeling a little unsure of myself I briefly nodded in their direction
and looked away. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Tomas Burnelli
attending. Tomas used to work as a personal assistant for Monique, like I did.
However he had found his calling as a funeral events planner. I wasn’t
surprised to see that he was here. I’d used him myself when having to organize
a funeral and he was very good at pulling together a tasteful send off for the
dearly departed in a very short period of time. Seeing me Tomas’s eyes lit up
and he headed in my direction.

“Trudie, my dear” he said in that voice of his which managed
to be both quiet and respectful but with a hint of the party personality he had
to keep hidden while working. I could tell it just wanted to burst through
though.

“I haven’t heard from you in months, but I did see that
photo online of you and Kai Roth.”

I dropped my head and had to stop myself from groaning.
During my last job with the teenage prodigy from hell I committed the cardinal
sin of an assistant and got noticed. One night I had to drag the most gifted
singer of the current generation (his words, not mine), drunk out of his mind,
away from a strip club. Unfortunately his brain had not caught up with the fact
that the woman he was trying to maul was not one of the delightful strippers in
the club who had been, oh so friendly, when he started throwing the cash
around, but his perfectly boring assistant. Unfortunately for me during this
time when I was trying to fend off the dozen hands he seemed to have grown, a
couple of paparazzi, showing their usual exquisite timing, had taken a photo.
The next day the headline had screamed about the teenage singer and his new
cougar girlfriend.

At twenty five years of age I was a cougar. Ever been the
focus of a teenage girl hate campaign? I’ve seen sharks in a feeding frenzy
more friendly that those girls were. Social media lit up and I was enemy number
one on the teenage girl hit list. I have never been called an old, ugly slut in
so many descriptive ways in my life. Of course the little, let’s use the term pop
star for now, refused to clarify the situation. He just let it go, feeding on
the collective outrage. Another reason I was really glad that job was over.
That and the excruciatingly uncomfortable conversation I had with my
grandmother, who tried to gently suggest that he might be a little too young
and too wild for me.

“Is this one of your cases?” Tomas whispered
conspiratorially.

“No” I lowered my voice to match his. “A friend of mine
worked with her and I’m just here with him.”

“So disappointing.” Tomas shook his head.

The last time I was involved with a funeral that Tomas
organized, a second wife turned up and disrupted proceedings quite
spectacularly. Obviously Tomas looked at that event not so much as a failed
funeral, but as a piece of soap opera like entertainment. Looking back on it I
had to agree.

“Your delicious policeman is here” Tomas whispered.

“He’s not my delicious policeman” I said automatically.

“Honey, the way that man looks at you, believe me he is your
delicious policeman. You just need to be brave enough to take a bite.”

That threw up a few interesting images. I looked up and sure
enough Griffin was staring at me with an expression that could only be
described as hot and possessive. For the first time, that thought didn’t fill
me with panic. I smiled to myself, maybe I was getting used to this.

“Have you been in to see Catarina yet?”

“No, not yet” I said. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see
her.”

“Oh you have to see her, Helena really did a fabulous job
today” Tomas said excitedly.

Helena was a funeral cosmetologist who prepared bodies for
viewing. She was a little unusual in the way she approached her profession, but
she had an amazing talent. Tomas dragged me into the viewing area so I could
have the opportunity to see Helena’s latest miracle. Reluctantly peering into
the coffin I gasped.

“She looks amazing. Seriously she didn’t look this good last
time I saw her. I swear Helena’s taken ten years off the woman.”

Tomas smiled happily. It was good to know someone who took
so much pride in their work. Looking down at her I noticed a small photo held
in her hands where they were crossed over her heart. I looked closer.

“Is that a cat?” I asked.

Tomas nodded. “Yes, it was a special request. According to
Peter, her assistant, Catarina loved that cat more than anyone.”

I could understand that. From the little I’d seen of
Catarina Badal, human relationships had not exactly been her strong point. At
that moment Peter came rushing in with a cat carrier. I could hear what sounded
like growling and hissing emanating from the cage. Peter himself didn’t look
great either. He had scratches on his hands and red patches on his face.

“Oh my God” I said. “Are you alright?”

Peter sniffed while he placed the cat cage next to the
coffin. Hunting in his pocket he drew out a wadded up tissue.

“I’m fine” he said. “Catarina would have wanted Cleopatra
here. Excuse me.”

Turning his head he blew his nose, long and loud. I could
see an angry red rash building on the back of his neck.

“Seriously Peter,” I said. “Do you need to see someone,
you’re not looking very well.”

Peter sniffed again as he tucked the tissues back in his
pocket. “I’m okay, I just have a couple of small allergies to cats.”

I looked at him doubtfully. His left eye seemed to be
swelling shut.

“Maybe you should go to the restroom and tidy yourself up a
bit” I suggested gently. “We’ll take care of the cat for you if you want.”

Peter blinked up at me, his left eye was starting to water
and the red rashes on his face seemed to be getting angrier.

“You’re right of course” he said blinking rapidly. “Thank
you but you can’t leave Cleopatra” he said.

“Not for an instant” I promised and Tomas nodded beside me.

After watching Peter leave I turned to Tomas and we both
hunkered down and looked at the cat through the front of the cat cage. Cleopatra
looked unremarkable, if you didn’t take into account that she made a noise that
sounded like an out of tune violin interspersed with hissing and her tail
lashing.

“Doesn’t look happy” I said.

“Should we take it out?” suggested Tomas. “So it can say
goodbye.”

“Did you see Peter’s hands” I said. “There is no way that I
am going anywhere near that cat.”

Tomas looked down at his perfectly manicured hands and
shrugged. Decision obviously made, he straightened up.

“I have some last minute items to take care of” he said.
“Can you stay with the cat until Peter comes back?”

“Sure” I said. When he left I realized that I had
volunteered to stay in a room with a corpse and a very angry cat. Faced with a
decision between talking to the dead woman or to the cat, I chose the less
creepy of the two options.

“So” I said, “I’m guessing you’re a little bit confused
right now.” The cat glared at me balefully and started up that growling noise
which was quickly reaching a screech.

“It’s okay sweetie” I crooned soothingly. “We’ll get you
through this and then I’m sure there’s going to be something very nice for you
to eat at the end of it.”

The cat started to quieten at the thought of food.

“That’s right.” I worked my fingers between the bars of the
cage in a vain attempt to stroke the calming cat and just barely pulled back in
time as the cat let out her claws and took a swipe.

“What the hell are you doing?” I spun around and there was
Griffin standing behind me, hands on hips with a quizzical look on his face.

“Cat, Catarina’s cat. Peter asked me to keep an eye on it.”

I stopped as I noticed that Griffin was trying manfully to
suppress a smile.

“One of these days you’re going to have to tell me how you
end up in these situations” he said shaking his head.

“A pathological inability to say no” I replied.

“Really?” queried Griffin. “You don’t seem to have a problem
with saying no to me.”

“You’re different” I said.

“Good” Griffin replied.

“What do you mean good?” I asked, a little irritated.

“Different means I’m special, different means you can’t walk
away and forget about me.”

I cleared my throat. “Are we having a moment? Because if we
are I think you’re forgetting about the dead woman and her psychotic cat.”

Griffin sighed.

“Yeah, I know. One of these days we’re actually going to
have to go on a date that doesn’t involve a dead body.”

“You are such a romantic” I said smiling.

“Trudie, are you in here?”

Griffin and I turned to see Crystal and Edwin tentatively
entering the room. Seeing Griffin with me, their reactions were quite
different. Edwin went pale and Crystal went red. Kind of described their two
personalities in a nutshell really. Thankfully and rather surprisingly Crystal
chose to remain quiet. Maybe the woman was learning self-control. After an
uncomfortable silence Griffin cleared his throat.

“I’ll speak to you later Trudie” he said.

“Wouldn’t want to get in the way of you accusing other
innocent people of murder” Crystal piped in.

I dropped my head. Looked like I spoke too soon. Ignoring
Crystal completely, Griffin left the room.

“Did you really have to do that?” I asked Crystal.

Defiantly Crystal flipped her hair back.

“He deserves it, if he put half as much attention into actually
finding the murderer as he has done hassling poor Edwin, the whole case would
be closed and we wouldn’t be in here with a…what is a cat doing in here?”

“It’s Catarina’s cat, her assistant felt it should be here
for the funeral.”

Crystal looked at me strangely.

“Cats are important to some people.”

Crystal turned on Edwin.

“This is what happens when you use your little brain and not
your big one, you sleep with the crazy cat lady.”

Turning around she stalked out of the room.

“Why is she being so nuts over this?” Edwin asked with a
plaintive tone in his voice.

“She’s never even thought about who I slept with before and
it was just the one time with Catarina. It’s not like it meant anything.”

“Number one, the woman is lying there dead, I really don’t
think this is the place for this conversation. Number two, maybe the situation
has changed recently and you should start adapting to the new regime” I said.

Edwin looked confused and I didn’t really feel like
enlightening him any further. I learned long ago to avoid getting entangled in
other people’s love lives, especially friends. Things have a tendency to get
messy when you step in the middle of those situations. Edwin looked over at
Catarina and his face softened.

“Sometimes life happens so quickly, one minute you’re there
and the next you’re gone” he said.

I put an arm around his shoulder. “And that is why we live
the best life we can, we appreciate what we have and we tell the people we love,
that we love them.”

“Wise words indeed” said a voice from behind us.

Edwin and I turned around and found an older man looking at
Catarina’s body. He looked to be in his late forties, his dark brown hair
showing streaks of gray.

“You would do well to listen to your friend” he directed at
Edwin, “Life just goes too fast and before you know it, you look back and see
it cluttered with regrets.”

He looked at Catarina again and I was surprised to see an
expression of bitterness on his face.

“My name is Trudie and this is Edwin.”

Still looking at Catarina he nodded. “I’m Evan Webber, I’m
Catarina’s husband.”

I felt as much as heard Edwin’s quick intake of breath.

“I’ll go find Crystal” he muttered before quickly making his
exit.

Evan’s eyes followed him out of the room and then he looked
at me thoughtfully.

“Your young man slept with my wife didn’t he?”

“He’s not my young man” I said, desperately trying not to
answer the question.

“It doesn’t matter” the older man said. “It’s not like
Catarina and I had much of a marriage left anyway.”

“I’m sorry” I said raising my voice as if it was a question.

“So was I, so many times” he sighed. “I was her English
professor in college. When I think of it now I should have realized something
wasn’t right. She was so beautiful and full of life, and she wanted me.” He
frowned. “I was never the type to catch the attention of a woman like her.”

I didn’t know what to say. Catarina had the looks and
personality that were larger than life and Evan was right. He looked exactly
like what he was, a conservative English professor.

“I had one thing that she wanted though” he continued on. “I
had the social group that she was interested in, that she knew could help her
career. I was a networking tool for her. She always got what she wanted and if
you got in the way she would walk right over you. She knew what she wanted the
first day she walked into my classroom and I made it easy for her.”