Foolproof (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 4) Page 11

  Iris said, “Thank you, Mrs. Nayton.”

  Marge patted Iris’s hand with long, bejeweled fingers. “Call me Marge. So nice to have met you all. Come by for cocktails. I have my martini at five and I always make a few canapés. No problem to put out a few more. Stop by anytime.” She turned on her heel and left the kitchen, head held high, back straight, hips swaying not too much, but enough. “I can find my way out.”

  Iris, Lily, and Rose followed her out the front door. A well-preserved black-and-white 1955 Buick Roadmaster was parked in Marge’s driveway next door. Marge had made it halfway down Iris’s brick walk when the women were startled by screeching tires. A butter yellow Ferrari swung around the corner of the street and zoomed past, hanging a quick right onto Capri Court. The top was down and a woman with long blonde hair was driving. Soon they glimpsed the Ferrari tearing along Capri Road, the street above Iris’s.

  Marge took mincing steps back to Iris. “We’ve just had a close encounter of the bimbo kind.”

  “That looked like Summer Fuchs driving Kip Cross’s car,” Iris said.

  “Oh my dear, she’s not Summer Fuchs anymore,” Marge said. “She’s Summer Fontaine.” Marge angled her eyes meaningfully. “She has a modeling career and will soon be on TV. Feature films will surely follow. Just ask her. She’s already booked appearances on talk shows.”

  “No!” Lily shouted with outrage.

  “Yes!” Marge continued. “Due to poor Bridget Cross’s misfortune, the modeling jobs have just been flooding in. So much that she can now afford silicone injections in her lips. She had it done today.”

  The women winced at the thought.

  “Oh, yes. Summer idolizes Pamela Anderson. Her goal is to remake herself to look as much like Pamela Anderson as she can.”

  “Bridget told me Summer had her breasts redone because they weren’t large enough after her first operation,” Iris said.

  “Well she should be very happy with them now,” Marge commented. “I’ve never seen such large breasts in all my days. They’re quite remarkable.”

  “What’s she doing driving Kip’s car?” Iris asked.

  “She’s caretaking the house,” Marge responded. “I saw her in the market yesterday. She bragged to me that she has the full run of the place.”

  “Why on earth did Bridget ever hire her?” Rose asked. “She must have been out of her head to let someone like that move into her house with her husband around.”

  “Mom, not all men cheat on their wives,” Lily said.

  “All the ones I’ve known have.”

  Iris shot a withering look in their direction, mortified that they would persist in airing the family’s dirty laundry in front of a stranger.

  “Summer didn’t look like that when the Crosses first hired her,” Marge interjected.

  “You know how bighearted Bridget was,” Iris said. “Summer was a casual friend of Kip’s cousin in Ohio. He called and asked if Summer could stay with them for a few weeks after she moved to L.A. to seek her fortune. A few weeks turned into a month and longer. Bridget had been thinking about hiring a live-in anyway. Summer and Brianna got along great. So…” Iris shrugged and gazed at the top of the hill. She could barely see the turquoise tile roof of the Cross house. “Bridget fired her the day before she was murdered. I guess Kip rehired her.”

  Marge again twisted the face of her watch. “I’ve got to fly. See you girls later.”

  Iris, Rose, and Lily wished Marge good-bye and watched her get into the classic Buick in which her head was barely visible above the steering wheel. After she had driven away, Rose and Lily turned and walked toward the house.

  Iris watched as a minivan with two men in it drove past and turned on Capri Court. Soon the car passed on the street above, just as the Ferrari had.

  “Iris?” Lily said.

  Roused from her thoughts, Iris looked at her sister. “Oh, I…I’m going to put some things away in the garage so I can park the Triumph in there tonight.” She made a show of walking in that direction.

  After her mother and sister had gone back inside, Iris sprinted across the street and up the cement staircase. A contractor’s stamp pressed into the first step indicated the stairs were built in 1927. There were many such staircases—remnants of pre-automobile-crazed L.A.—scattered across the hilly, older neighborhoods of Los Angeles. A group of enthusiasts mapped and walked them.

  The city had not maintained the staircases. It was a credit to their original design, solid construction, and sheer luck that they were still usable. Three staircases comprised the Casa Marina stairways. A set of sixty steps led from the bridge traversing Pacific Coast Highway to Casa Marina Drive where Iris and Marge lived. Eighty steps led from Casa Marina Drive to Capri Road. Seventy steps led from Capri Road to Cielo Way, where the Cross house was located. The Casa Marina stairways were decrepit in spots but functional enough to allow Bridget Cross’s murderer to escape.

  As Iris ascended the steps that led to Capri Road, she passed the backyard of the abandoned house on the street above hers. She gingerly stepped over the thick brush, flowering vines, overgrown ivy, and creeping roses that grew from the house’s long-untended backyard past the staircase’s two parallel, round steel railings. The thorns of a bougainvillea vine caught her jeans leg. She struggled to quickly free herself, not wanting to be stuck there.

  At the top of the staircase, Iris scurried across Capri Road and only paused to look back at the derelict two-story house when she was a safe distance away. Most of its window glass had been broken out. Its front door stood ominously open. The foyer beyond the open door was strewn with garbage, bricks, and broken pieces of masonry.

  She climbed the next set of steps, stretching her legs to cross a section that had pulled away from the hill and was separated from the step above by a gap a foot wide. A storm drain ran along the ground in the brush and scrub oak beyond the railing. It led from the Crosses’ backyard and drained rainwater from their patio. Last year, Bridget had the patio and pool installed but ran out of time to properly bury the drain before the rainy season arrived. The drain consisted of several long aluminum pipes, about twelve inches in diameter, connected by aluminum sleeves. It extended the length of the hillside all the way down to Capri Road.

  Iris mentally counted the steps as she ascended. Something rustled in the brush and low trees nearby, making her jump. After hearing no other noise than her pounding heart, she continued. At the fifty-fourth step up from Capri Road, she saw rust-colored stains and carefully tiptoed around them. This was where the police said the bloody flip-flop footprints disappeared into the brush. The blood had been incompletely removed by a crew Bridget’s parents had hired. The Tylers were shocked to discover that the city only took care of the bodies. The clean up was not their job.

  Iris now reached the cinder block wall that enclosed the Cross property. She tried the wooden gate that led into the patio, but it was locked. She continued up until she reached Cielo Way where she turned left toward the front of the Cross house. The yellow Ferrari was parked in the long driveway, and the minivan Iris had seen go up the hill was parked behind it. Cielo Way dead-ended into the Crosses’ front yard.

  Iris noticed that the massive wooden front door of the Spanish Gothic house was ajar. The door, made of broad planks held together with strips of riveted metal, was originally from an old church in Spain. It creaked appropriately when she pushed it open. She walked into the foyer, her tennis shoes silent against the ceramic tile floor.

  “Summer?” she said, none too loudly. She didn’t want to be accused of breaking in but had no intention of warning the woman of her visit. She crossed the foyer and descended the three steps into the family room which was separated from the foyer by an arch. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were to the left. Standing in the family room, through French doors that opened onto the patio, she saw Summer Fontaine vamping in skimpy lingerie on a patio lounge chair. A man was looking at her through a camera positioned on a tripod. A seco
nd man was holding a sheet of reflective material behind Summer’s head. Photography equipment was scattered about.

  Iris saw red. Without hesitation, she burst through a set of French doors. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Summer’s swollen lips, heavily colored with two tones of pink, first parted with surprise, then curled with disgust. “You ever think of ringing the doorbell?”

  The two men looked at Iris with mild interest.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The man who had been looking through the camera answered, “We’re from the National Enquirer. We purchased exclusive rights to photograph Summer at the murder scene.”

  “Rights? You can’t sell rights you don’t have, Summer.” Iris snarled at the men. “Get out!”

  “We’ve paid for photographs,” said the man with the camera, “and we’re not leaving until we get them.”

  Summer bolted from the lounge chair. Her heavy breasts swayed beneath the sheer lingerie. “You get out! Kip knows all about this, okay? He doesn’t care if I make a little money. This is none of your business.”

  “I won’t have you profiting from my friend’s murder.”

  Summer put her hands on her hips. Her abdomen was so flat it was almost concave. “Bridget’s not around anymore and you don’t have a damn thing to say about anything that goes on here.” She drew back her lips, revealing bleached-white teeth. “Get out before I call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Without another word, Iris left by the front door and ran back down the stairs all the way to her house where her mother and sister were still arguing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  On Sunday morning, Iris awoke early after her first night in her new house. At first she feared not being able to sleep, then she feared having nightmares like the one with Bridget and the mirror, but she was so exhausted, she went out once her head hit the pillow. The next thing she heard was birds singing. She opened her eyes to muted sunshine filtered through a light haze of morning fog and cool, fresh air. She sat up in bed, hugged her knees, and looked out her glass doors at a blue-gray ocean. The only thing that was missing was Garland.

  He hadn’t called the night before. She hadn’t called him either, but she figured that since she was the one who was moving, he should have called her. Then it occurred to her that he might have thought that she was going to call him since she was the one in transition and probably harder to get hold of. Then she thought that he should have at least called her to congratulate her. That was her final verdict: he should have called her and he didn’t. She was alone on Saturday night and he didn’t call. Maybe he was too busy to call. Maybe he wasn’t alone. She didn’t like that idea. She tried to put it out of her head.

  She climbed out of bed, grabbed her worn terry cloth bathrobe, and padded barefoot into the kitchen, dodging boxes that were piled everywhere. The coffeemaker’s familiar red light glowed brightly next to a fresh pot of coffee that had automatically brewed. She poured a mug and drank it black while she picked the gooey top off an apple-spice muffin she’d bought the night before at her new, local grocery store. A little breakfast treat on her first morning in her new house.

  She slipped her cordless phone into the pocket of her robe so she wouldn’t have to run inside in case Garland called, gathered the muffin and mug and Sunday paper she’d also purchased the night before, and walked outside onto her redwood deck. She reclined in the Adirondack chair that once upon a time had been crammed onto the tiny terrace of her condominium. Then she’d only had room for one chair. She now had room for two. But, she thought sadly, she was still alone, so what difference did it make? One chair was plenty. She pulled the phone from her pocket, glared at it as if willing it to ring, then slipped it back.

  After finishing her muffin, retrieving a second cup of coffee, and idly looking through the newspaper, she again took out the phone. This time she dialed. It was 10 A.M. in New York. Garland would probably be relaxing, reading the Sunday papers, having his own coffee—and missing her, of course. The phone rang four times before his answering machine picked up. She hung up while the message was still playing. He wasn’t sitting at home missing her but, she assured herself, he was bound to be missing her wherever he was. Or maybe he wasn’t missing her at all. Maybe she was being a stupid idiot and in reality he couldn’t care less about her. She got up and took a shower.

  Within an hour, she was at the glass doors of Pandora’s corporate offices. She cupped her hands around her eyes, pressed her face to the door, and waved at someone inside.

  Shortly, Toni Burton appeared on the other side of the door and unlocked the two deadbolts. “Hi, Iris. Sorry you had to wait, but there’s just been so many weirdos hanging around I didn’t dare stay here by myself with the doors unlocked. We’ve even had death threats. Can you believe it?” She pulled the door open and hopped to the side so Iris could enter. Her bright blue eyes sparkled. Toni’s boundless cheerfulness made Iris suspect she was half-witted the first time she’d met her.

  “Death threats?” Iris followed Toni into the bowels of the converted airplane hangar. Iris had visited Pandora a few times with Bridget and had previously met Toni and the firm’s other key employees. “Against who?”

  The high-domed walls of the hangar were laced with strings of tiny, twinkling white lights that were woven through the exposed steel and wood lattice. Daylight filtered through scattered rows of windows lining the walls. The loose structure of offices, meeting rooms, and common areas of raw pine and unpainted wallboard meandered across the large space, rising high against the side walls and cascading down toward the middle. The different sections of the structure were connected by a series of catwalks. The work areas were harshly lit by fluorescent bulbs. The place looked like a set of interlocking playhouses made by children with backyard junk.

  Toni skipped ahead of Iris, periodically turning to walk backward as she spoke. “Oh, Ki-ip”—she gave his name two syllables—“mostly. I feel like telling these people, you know, if you, like, have the guts to do something like that you ought to have the guts to stand up and be recognized, you know? Ugh!” She made a guttural noise and wrinkled her nose. “And then, here we are trying to get over poor Bridget being shot to death and people have the nerve to send these snotty letters about how she was to blame for what happened to her. How she created an environment that, like, breeds violence or something.” She turned to look slack-jawed at Iris, who was following two steps behind. “Unreal, huh?”

  “People can be amazingly cruel.”

  They walked past life-sized figures of what looked like alien warriors. Each one stood on its own pedestal and was illuminated by spotlights. Slade Slayer was there, armed to the teeth with plastic renderings of his fantasy weapons.

  “Wow,” Iris said.

  “Kip commissioned some guy to make these.”

  “Must have been expensive.” Iris recalled T. Duke Sawyer’s anger over how Kip and Bridget had spent USA Assets’ money.

  “For sure.”

  They passed a glass display case that contained T-shirts, sweatshirts, and tank tops with Slade Slayer’s silk-screened image. Positioned on hat stands across the top of the case were rubber, full-head masks of Slade Slayer, complete with Stallone-esque sneer.

  “I’m particularly proud of that stuff,” Toni said in response to Iris’s interest in the display case. “It was my idea to license Slade Slayer’s image. I did all the deals myself. We do ten thousand dollars a month in sales of Slade Slayer merchandise. Next year we’ll do even more once the Slade Slayer line of toy weapons goes into production. I just signed a deal with a major toy producer.” She paused as if waiting for applause. When none was forthcoming, she continued. “We hope to have them on the shelves in time for the Christmas season.”

  Toni mounted a wooden staircase that led to a catwalk. They entered a large room fitted with windows against the inside and outside walls. All the blinds were closed tight. A large table was clutt
ered with computer equipment as was almost every other flat surface. “Of course we’ve received tons of fan mail—letters, E-mail, and faxes. Everyone’s worried about what’s going to happen to Pandora with Bridget gone and Kip…you know.”

  She waved her hand to indicate the room. “This is our computer lab. We call it the War Room. It’s where we come together with our ideas, prototypes, and sketches, and fight it out.” The morning dampness had frizzed Toni’s wavy, strawberry blonde hair, undoing her efforts with a curling iron earlier that morning. She was dressed casually in snug jeans that accentuated her well-toned hips and legs, a crisply pressed white cotton shirt, and lug-soled hiking boots.

  She turned the rod to open the blinds. “Everyone likes it so dark in here. It drives me crazy. If I didn’t have a window in my office, I’d go absolutely nuts out of my mind. There’s a patio off the other end of the hangar that Bridget had constructed. Sometimes, when it’s nice outside, I work out there.” She looked wide-eyed at Iris and pulled her mouth into a small O. “I forgot to offer you something. What a terrible hostess I am!”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Iris said. Toni’s pug nose and tiny, rounded mouth reminded her of a Kewpie doll. “I just had breakfast.”

  Toni sat in a chair in front of a computer monitor on which Suckers Finish Last was running. Iris sat beside her. Slade Slayer was massacring the same aliens over and over behind the opening menu as hard rock music blared from the speakers. Slade’s baritone voice periodically intoned, “Die, suckers!” Toni turned a knob on one of the speakers, lowering the volume.

  “After we talked, I logged on to some of the Slade Slayer chat rooms.” Toni crossed her legs at the knees and again at the ankles, looking like a gawky teenager waiting to be asked to dance. She pivoted her legs back and forth on one toe. “Is that gross or what? A slingshot in Bridget’s hand!”