“Thank you. FYI, there’s a note on the flyer saying proper costume isn’t required, but is encouraged.”
“Which is the passive-aggressive way of saying it’s required. Fine. I’ll do-si-do over to the house at some point during my trip here to see if Grammy had a square dance dress.” After retiring from decades as a kindergarten teacher, Sam’s widowed mother had launched a second career as a film and TV extra. The extras who could provide their own wardrobe booked more jobs, so Grammy Stern had amassed a wide range of outfits, some of which the Sterns held on to for sentimental reasons.
“I’ll mosey on over to the mercantile and buy a man’s square dance shirt. I’m sure Yes-that-Donner’s selling them. Wouldn’t hurt to score some points with her.”
“You have a better chance at that than I ever will, especially if you bat those baby browns and fluff your copper curls for her.”
“You make me sound like a 1930s vamp.” Jeff grew serious. “How’d the drive go? You okay? How’s your dad?”
“Getting here was your typical Hell-A freeway ride. A self-driving car passed me doing eighty while the driver texted. Dad is . . . Dad. We all handle grief differently. I cry. Dad goes into the voice of Tweety Sweety.”
“One of his best characters. But not appropriate, considering.”
“It’s not fair of me to judge him. He lost the love of his life. He’s also aging out of his career, which I know is painful for him. It’s a tough time for Dad. I can tell he’s a little lost.” Dee yawned. She rubbed her eyes. “I’m pretty wiped out. I think I’ll crash early.”
“Good idea. Rest up for tomorrow. Let me know if you learn anything I need to act on.”
“Will do.”
The two signed off. Dee’s eyelids began to flutter. She forced herself awake and texted Sam to let him know she was calling it a night and he should refrigerate her turkey sandwich. She then wheeled the table out of the Murphy bed’s path and pulled down the bed. After a desultory face wash and teeth brush, she climbed into bed.
Dee fell asleep, hoping that her conversations the next day would garner much-needed insight into the motivation behind Michael Adam Baker’s murder.
CHAPTER 18
Fueled by nervous energy, Dee woke up early. She decided to capitalize on this with a hike on a popular trail in the Studio City hills.
After throwing on workout clothes, Dee left the she shed. On her way to the car, she stopped to peek into her dad’s house. All was still, which she expected. Sam had never been an early riser, as opposed to Sibby, who confounded husband and daughter with her morning zip and boundless cheer.
Dee continued to her Honda. She climbed in, backed out of the driveway onto the street, and started toward the trail. She noticed that the few older homes still standing on the block had a dispirited look to them, as if resigned to their fate as teardowns. There was more activity in the McMansion driveways, where young moms in yoga togs were strapping sleepy children into car seats for the drive to school.
Dee’s hike got off to a bad start with a fifteen-minute wait for a spot in the small lot that offered the trail’s only parking option. Tired of finding used diapers on their lawns and being woken up by fanatical fitness coaches screaming at their boot camp hiker clients, the residents of the celebrity-riddled surrounding neighborhood had instituted permit parking, effectively banning day trippers from the environs.
After she finally scored a spot, Dee began the steep climb that constituted the trail’s initial approach. The first ten minutes were strenuous in the extreme, but then the dirt path leveled out to a more gradual climb. With scrubby vegetation and few trees to provide shade, there was no escaping the Southern California sun beating down on Dee, and she found herself missing the thick woods and deep green of Foundgold.
A few women hiking together outpaced her on the trail. As they disappeared around the bend, she heard one of them say to the other, “A couple million doesn’t cut it anymore.” Dee considered this. The hiker wasn’t wrong, at least when it came to living the good life in Los Angeles. The comment was particularly true of the showrunner circles where Michael Adam Baker aspired to travel. Dee felt surer than ever that the TV writer’s desperate attempt at story theft was financially motivated.
She finished the hike with much huffing and puffing and vows to exercise more, once she returned home. Home, she thought. That’s what Foundgold is to me now. The realization made her happy. She headed back to the she shed, where she showered and changed into an outfit of black leggings, black ankle booties, and a drapey purple tunic top.
Dee got to the coffee shop, where Pria had asked to meet, right on time. She snagged the one table not occupied by people on laptops hogging a spot for the day. A woman in her late twenties entered and glanced around. She was petite, with fine features, and glossy black hair, which hung past her shoulders. Even though Pria was obviously of East Indian descent, she reminded Dee of Liza. Taking a chance, Dee waved to her.
The woman acknowledged the wave and walked toward her. “Dee?” she asked.
Dee nodded. “Hi, Pria. Thanks so much for meeting with me. Can I buy you a coffee?”
“I’m good.” Pria took the seat opposite her. “And meeting with you is my pleasure. Especially if it’s a chance to talk smack about Michael.”
“Okay, then,” Dee said, taken aback by Pria’s honesty, but appreciative of it. “I assume you know by now he was murdered.”
“Oh yes. I had a chat with a ranger named O’Bryant.”
Dee managed not to say Ugh! “I hope I’m not going to make you repeat yourself.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. The conversation was short and pro forma. The minute I verified my alibi, he lost interest in me.”
Dee fumed. She was positive O’Bryant was merely going through the motions until he gathered the proof he needed to arrest Jeff. “Since Michael listed you as his emergency contact, you must have been close.”
“Very. But why he listed me as his emergency contact, I’ll never know. Either he had no other person to put down or it was wishful thinking.” Dee picked up a note of sadness in Pria’s voice. “We were living together until I found out his ‘research trips’ to Goldsgone were BS,” the ex-girlfriend explained. “He was cheating on me with an old girlfriend. I saw the same number come up a few times on his cell phone when he left it out. I wrote it down, called it, and had a very interesting chat with the woman who answered.”
“By any chance, was it Liza Chen?”
“Yup. I see that look on your face. If you’re thinking Liza and I joined forces to off Michael, here’s where I was the night of his murder.” Pria scrolled through images on her phone. Landing on one, she held it up to Dee, whose eyes widened. Michael’s ex-girlfriend stood posed on a movie premiere’s red carpet, her arm entwined in the arm of the film’s megastar, Jace Anders. “My current boyfriend. I traded up. I’m not talking financially, although that too. But definitely a kinder, more supportive guy—and one who’s not a serial cheater.”
“About the financials. Do you know anything about Michael’s?”
“Considering he still owes me for the last two months of rent I covered before I kicked him out, I can tell you he was in deep debt. He bought a house at the top of the market and was underwater on the mortgage. His scripts weren’t selling and his overall deal with New Century Studios ended. He burned through his savings and was living off his credit cards. Once he burned through the limits on those, I don’t know what his plans for survival were.”
“I bet I do,” Dee said, her tone acidic. She shared his plan to rip off her career transition.
“Oh, that’s bad,” Pria said. “But I’m not surprised. It’s very Michael.” She placed her phone inside her Fendi purse.
Knowing Fendi purses cost four figures or more, and that Pria’s career as a script supervisor didn’t afford such luxuries, Dee assumed it was a gift from her new boyfriend. In which case, Pria, the below-the-line crew member, had definitely traded up.
“I can’t think of anything else to tell you right now,” Pria said. “If I do, I’ll call you. Are you talking to any of his coworkers? He spent more time with them than he ever did with me.”
“That happens in TV.”
Pria stood up. “Good luck. I have no idea what Michael’s future would have looked like if he hadn’t died. But no one deserves to be murdered.”
