Dead Ex Read online

  I escorted Joey to another room with an adjoining bathroom. She

  walked unsteadily but spoke without slurring. “I didn’t mean to kill her Bösendorfer,” she said, pausing in the doorway. “It’s not murder. Man-slaughter or negligent homicide, but not murder one.”

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  “Nobody thought you meant to murder the piano.”

  “They’re gonna think I murdered him, though,” she said, and shut the door.

  Him? Whom? She couldn’t mean David, could she? My cell phone

  rang. I looked at it. A restricted number.

  “Simon?” I asked, answering it.

  “Are you naked?”

  “It’s really not that kind of party.”

  “Go home,” he said. “And I’ll show you that kind of party.”

  I took this to mean he was not yet home himself, but before I could get into it, he got another call and hung up. I got another call too.

  Fredreeq.

  “Where the hell are you?” she asked.

  “Upstairs. You?”

  “TV room. Joey?”

  “Bathroom. Want me to conference her in?”

  Someone yelled from downstairs. “It’s on the news! David’s death!

  Channel Nine!”

  “Wollie,” my phone squawked, “forget Joey and come down. You

  gotta watch.”

  “No, I don’t want Joey wandering off, trying to drive—”

  “You’ll see her from here. Hold on. I’m on the move . . . approaching the living room . . . okay, I’m looking up at you.”

  There she was. Fredreeq appeared in the doorway of the TV room,

  which connected to the huge living room. Phone to ear, she gave me the peace sign. I waved back and hung up.

  I knocked on the bathroom door to tell Joey I was going downstairs and asked if she was okay. She called back “Vaya con Dios,” which I took as a yes.

  I made my way to a family room featuring a mammoth television

  hung from the ceiling. It was nearly the room’s only furnishing, and par-tygoers were packed in, standing, tight as cigarettes. I stayed in the doorway to keep an eye on the upstairs bedroom, in case Joey emerged, but soon people pressed in behind me, blocking the view, so I turned to watch TV.

  David Zetrakis filled the screen, larger than life and younger than I’d known him. He smiled, holding up a bottle of something orange while a

  2 0 H A R L E Y J A N E K O Z A K

  voice enumerated his mid-career commercials. I remembered now that he’d been an actor since childhood.

  The image changed. A reporter stood outside the gates of David’s Toluca Lake estate, microphone in hand, her bulletproof hairdo unmoving, despite the wind that rustled the palm trees behind her. She was doing the stand-up, filling in the blanks of his life, turning it to legend.

  “The adorable child we fell in love with,” she said, “grew up in front of the camera.”

  “Ten years before you were born, you maudlin idiot!” a man yelled. I recognized him as Clay, from the upstairs closet. Someone shushed him.

  “. . . went on to study directing at NYU,” the reporter said. “He moved to Hollywood in the 1980s and guest-starred in popular TV series. A turning point came when he played serial killer–turned–town hero Zeke Fabian in At the End of the Day, which brought him his first Daytime Emmy, and countless fans.” The camera pulled back to show others outside the gates with the reporter, holding a candlelight vigil. A soap opera clip filled the screen, featuring David slitting the throat of a nubile blonde in a swimsuit. There was laughter in the back of the room, and more shushing.

  It’s strange enough to see the face of someone you know on the news, although less strange in Hollywood, where everyone seems connected to television. More startling, somehow, was to see David’s estate, sparkling with Christmas lights, surrounded by news crews. I’d eaten breakfast behind those gates, attended dinner parties, had intimate conversations, slept there. Now it was a backdrop to tragedy, the real estate equivalent of a car wreck.

  “. . . began directing episodes, then moved into the role of producer,”

  the reporter continued. “At the time of his death, he owned a share of the successful daytime drama, had acquired seven more Emmys, and was considered one of the most accomplished men in the industry. Although he’d faded from the sight of the viewing audience, he never faded from our hearts.” The photomontage moved backward in time and ended on a shot of David as a three-year-old moppet. A woman to my right sobbed.

  Jen Kim, behind me, announced that the photomontage had been put together for David’s fiftieth-birthday party, a year earlier.

  “The fatal shooting,” the newswoman continued, in a tone that man-

  D E A D E X 2 1

  aged to be serious yet salacious, “contrary to earlier reports, was not suicide. According to a police department spokesperson, a homicide investigation is under way. No word yet whether robbery was a motive, but David Zetrakis numbered among his possessions a Kentucky Derby–

  winning racehorse, a rare-stamp collection, and a painting by Gustav Klimt valued at two million dollars. The police have not revealed the names of suspects at this time.”

  There was instant silence, except for the distant sound of croaking frogs.

  “My God!” yelled a woman near the television, shattering the silence.

  “Let me through. I’ve gotta get to the newsroom for the eleven o’clock.

  This story’s mine.”

  Angel Ramirez pushed through the crowd like a quarterback, judg-

  ing by the “Hey, watch out!” comments. Near the doorway there was a short shriek, followed by a thud. I muscled my way through to see her facedown on the living room floor.

  “Goddamnit!” she yelled. “This nose is brand-new. If I’ve broken anything, someone’s going to pay for it—” A man helped her up and out to the foyer, where we could hear her screaming for valet parking.

  I turned to see Joey, shaky but smiling, leaning on a wall for support.

  I reached her as she began to sink to the floor.

  “I tripped her,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. David hated reporters.”

  With that, she passed out.

  F i v e

  I sat on my knees, holding her head, not knowing what to do. I looked around for Fredreeq, but there was only a sea of legs, none of them en-cased in red chiffon. A man, Asian and handsome, squatted next to me.

  “Is she—out?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Can you help me get her to my car? Before Tricia sees her.”

  “It’s the kind of thing I excel at.” He took off his sports coat and handed it to me, then scooped up Joey like a prince rescuing Sleeping Beauty. Joey was skinny enough and he, while short, was muscular enough to make this look easy. He carried her to the foyer. I followed. People stared.

  “What are you, a fireman?” I said, opening the front door for him.

  Fredreeq appeared in the distance, her turban bouncing in the crowd, her hand waving.

  “No, I’m an actor,” he said. “Rupert Ling.”

  “I’m Wollie Shelley.” I searched through my purse for the valet parking stub as we hurried toward the driveway. “That’s my friend Joey you’re carrying.”

  Rupert smiled. “I’ve carried her before. I used to be her half brother, with whom she was having an affair, on At the End of the Day. ”

  “You were her stepfather too, don’t forget,” Fredreeq said, catching up

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  to us, breathless from the exertion, “before Rosamund was struck by lightning and got amnesia. Hello, I’m Fredreeq Munson, and I’m very glad to meet you. I’m a fan of the show and you are nearly the only thing worth watching these days, if I may be blunt. What’s going on with Joey?”

  “Passed out,” I said. “Let’s put her in my car.”

  “Good idea,” Rupert said. “Since I saw her husband drive off in theirs ten minutes ago. Where w
ill you take her, home?”

  “I don’t think her home’s a good idea,” I said. “Under the circumstances. And I’m between homes. Fredreeq? Your home?”

  Fredreeq shook her head. “Cats. She’s allergic.”

  “I’d take her myself,” Rupert said, “but I have a jealous, uh . . . tenant.”

  “Then I guess it’ll have to be me after all,” I said. How Simon would respond to an unconscious houseguest gave me pause. “Or maybe my Uncle Theo. I’ll give him a call.”

  My Integra appeared and the valet guys helped get Joey inside. I was thinking that I should’ve gone to the car wash instead of having sex all week when a police cruiser pulled into the driveway.

  “Go,” Rupert said. “Get her out of here.”

  “Fast,” Fredreeq added. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  I didn’t argue. I got in the driver’s seat and rolled out of the driveway at a decorous pace, so as not to attract undue attention from the men or women in blue.

  It was only when I hit the freeway that I wondered why exactly the three of us were so certain that Joey should not meet the police.

  S i x

  F redreeq and I stayed in cellular conversation all the way to Westwood.

  “Uncle Theo’s not answering his phone,” I said, “and I don’t have keys to his place on me. It’ll have to be Simon’s.”

  “Great,” she said. “It’s a good safe house. Joey’s gonna be like raw meat to a pack of hyenas when it comes to reporters; we can’t leave her lying around Glendale at Uncle Theo’s.”

  “What are you talking about?” I looked in the rearview mirror at Joey, snoring softly.

  “Joey and David,” Fredreeq said, “were a hot item once.”

  “So? That was a hundred years ago.” But images sprang into my head, of Joey and David attending every movie premier and charity fund-raiser in Hollywood. “Well, anyway, they were soap stars, not Oscar winners.

  There’s a hierarchy.”

  On the phone, Fredreeq snorted. “I’ll tell you something, missy. If you’re just a little bit famous and you get yourself gunned down, or your arm eaten off by a mountain lion, it’s jackpot time. Joey’s a marked woman.

  While you two were upstairs, Angel Ramirez was sniffing around, asking about Joey and David, Joey and Elliot, was Joey having an affair now with David, was she divorcing Elliot over David, blah- blah, blah- blah—

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  and now that David’s a murder victim, the press will be heat-seeking missiles, looking for a photogenic suspect.”

  “As long as it’s the press, not the police,” I said.

  “Oh, like the cops don’t watch News at Eleven? Drive faster. I want to catch it.”

  “The news? We just watched it.”

  “ ‘Channel Nine Extra Special Report’? Please. I mean hard news.”

  We pulled off the 405 South at 10:32 p.m. and made our way east on Wilshire. I parked under the building, went up through the lobby, said a cheery hello to Ali, the night doorman, then headed outside to meet Fredreeq, parked on Thayer. I used my keycard to get into the parking garage again, and we hurried down two levels, our heels echoing on the cement.

  Removing Joey from the Integra was no picnic. It wasn’t that she was weighty, but we didn’t want to bruise her. Also, we weren’t dressed for heavy lifting. We were, however, dressed for Simon’s high-rise, including its spacious and gracious elevators. Fredreeq, as she pointed out, was also dressed for Kwanzaa.

  “Now this is apartment living,” Fredreeq said, reaching the top floor.

  We arranged Joey on a love seat next to the elevator so I could see if Simon was home—he wasn’t—and then deal with the multiple locks and disarm his security system. “I’ve always been a home owner—gotta have my backyard barbecue—but I’d reconsider if I snagged a man like this.”

  We propped open Simon’s door, then went to reclaim Joey. I was congratulating myself on not encountering any neighbors when a woman emerged from the elevator, leading a dog by a jeweled leash. She and the dog wore matching jackets, in white leather.

  She blinked.

  “Hi, there,” I said, going backward, holding Joey’s shoulders. Fredreeq had her feet.

  “Cute dog,” Fredreeq said to the woman. “What is that, a Labra-

  doodle?”

  “Schnoodle,” the woman replied, and hurried down the hall.

  We got Joey into the apartment, arranged her on the sofa, then went into the kitchen to explore Simon’s cupboards. It was four minutes till news time.

  “Protein. Protein powder. Protein bars. Protein drinks. Vitamins.

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  Vodka. Gin. Olives. And a twelve-pack of paper towels. This is a cry for help,” Fredreeq said, arms akimbo. “This is a man begging to be domesticated.”

  “What do we do about Joey?” I said. “Not just tonight, but in the long run?”

  “I vote we castrate Elliot. That’ll perk her up. How long’s he been cheating?”

  “It’s news to me, so it must be recent. Ever seen her this drunk before?”

  “Well, lately she’s been—. Listen, if my old flame got himself whacked and my husband was playing with his zipper, I’d get liquored up too.

  Come on.” She headed back to the living room. “We need to get this TV

  operational.”

  But Simon’s television, like all his electronic equipment, was as user-friendly as a space shuttle. Even his furniture intimidated me. After three weeks I was no closer to feeling at home in the penthouse than I’d been my first night. I felt like my Integra in the parking garage, a preowned bargain amid the Porsches, Rolls-Royces, and Beemers. Simon himself drove a Bentley.

  Fredreeq frantically worked the remotes. “Eureka!” she yelled, achiev-ing sound and picture simultaneously. “Okay, let’s just see—” She changed channels at the speed of light. “Did you know Angel Ramirez was Allie Rumsfelt before she turned Latina?”

  I looked with new interest at Angel’s dyed-black hair as she introduced her segment, “Bloodbath in Toluca Lake.” Only now, in addition to footage on David’s career, there were old photos of David and various actresses on various red carpets, highlighting his prolific romantic history. Finally, they zeroed in on a photo of David and Joey. Red hair up-swept in a professional do, Joey was described as a model-turned-actress, which wasn’t quite accurate, but close enough. I glanced at the real Joey snoring on the couch, hair sticking out, face freckled and flushed with alcohol. Something stirred in me, a protectiveness I’d never felt about her.

  “The acknowledged love of his life, Joey Rafferty, played out her on-again, off-again romance with David in front of the camera and behind closed doors for a decade. And in the last weeks of his life, it was she who remained by his bedside.”

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  The picture changed to an interview with a woman described as

  David’s housekeeper. “Miss Joey, she was here all the time, every day. All the time at night too, many, many nights. Until Christmas Eve. They have a big fight. Lot of screaming, like the old days. Then she leave.”

  “So many unanswered questions,” Angel Ramirez said. “Among them: What part did David Zetrakis play in Joey Rafferty’s publicly disinte-grating marriage to millionaire entrepreneur Elliot Horowitz? And more disturbingly, what part did Joey Rafferty play in her former lover’s murder? This is Angel Ramirez, reporting live from Toluca Lake.”

  S e v e n

  Bitch,” Fredreeq and I said simultaneously to the TV. Joey snored on.

  We watched David’s body being loaded into a van. We assumed

  it was David’s body. It was a lump on a stretcher, certainly. My mind turned the image into a greeting card and added a caption: Congratulations on your fifteen minutes of fame.

  “That’s it?” I stood, agitated. “That’s the segment? It was all about Joey! How can a reporter say those things, like it’s journalism? It’s gossip, only people are goin
g to assume there’s some truth in it since—”

  “Thank you.” Fredreeq nodded. “I have been trying to tell you all night.”

  “And what reason would Joey have for killing David?”

  “Exactly. It’s not like she was married to him. Like she was sick of the way he flossed his teeth for the last ten years. Like he had a habit of saying ‘uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh’ while reading the paper and never listening to a goddamn word she said. Like he pretended never to know which bin is for trash and which one’s recycling so that she’d stop asking him to take out the garbage after the first year of marriage.”

  “Fredreeq,” I said. “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m just saying. Marriage is means, motive, and opportunity, one-stop shopping. But David never got married. Why?”

  I aimed remotes at the TV, trying to turn it off. “Joey was the love of

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  his life. He told me that once. I don’t know what went wrong between them.”

  “Who inherits that house?”

  “I think he had siblings.”

  “Wait. It’s coming to me.” Fredreeq swept into the kitchen and returned with a protein bar. “A guy, fifty, good-looking, rich, never marries—what’s that say to you?”

  I shrugged. “Commitophobe?”

  “Homosexual.” She ripped open the protein bar wrapper. “He was

  passing as straight, but one of his boyfriends threatened blackmail and David got a gun and the boyfriend came over and grabbed it and shot him. Case closed. God, I’m good at this.”

  “Fredreeq, this is L.A., not West Point. Being gay isn’t a career ender anymore.”

  “I can name you twenty-seven actors trying to pass themselves off as straight.”

  “David hasn’t acted for years. Anyhow, I slept with him. I should know.”

  Fredreeq’s eyes narrowed. “Well? How was it?”