The Next to Die

Twelve laps around her apartment building’s rooftop track equaled a mile. Dayle was alone up there, twenty-one stories above the street. The heavy smog tonight made for a gorgeous sunset: billowing clouds of vibrant pink, orange, and crimson. But the smog also took its toll on Dayle’s lung power. Eighteen laps, and already she was exhausted.

She took to the track whenever she was particularly frazzled, lonely, or blue; which meant she was in damn good physical shape lately. She’d hired a private detective agency, Brock Investigations, to check on Estelle Collier. Dayle figured Estelle was being blackmailed or threatened. There had to be some explanation for her lies. John McDunn had recommended the agency. He swore they were good, because his second wife used the sons of bitches to catch him cheating—and he’d been so careful. Dayle had spoken with Amos Brock three days ago. He’d assigned the case to his brother, Nick, who was supposed to have some results for her soon.

In the meantime, she felt uncertain and all alone with her theories about the deaths of Leigh, Tony, and his friend. Hell, she felt all alone, period. Though they never had a chance to become friends, Dayle felt an inexplicable void in the wake of Leigh’s “suicide.”

Last night, she’d started to call Dennis at home—just to chat. But she hung up before she finished dialing. He wasn’t on the clock. She had no right to bother him at home simply because she was lonely. Besides, Dennis had met someone, and supposedly he was in love. The way he kept talking about her—Laura this, Laura that—was rather nauseating. Dayle hated to admit it, but she was a little jealous. Dennis had found a life outside his job, he’d found someone more important to him than Dayle Sutton.

She wondered what people would say if she died the same way as Leigh had. Would her memory be marred by rumors and innuendo? Who knew her well enough to rush to her defense? She had no real intimate friends. All she had was her public image.

They’d probably rehash the lesbian rumors. Some enterprising tabloid reporter might even dig up evidence of the one time she’d “experimented” with another woman. It had happened almost fourteen years ago, the first of her two indiscretions while married to Jeremy. She was starring in a satire called Positively Revolting, about antiwar demonstrators in the sixties. The movie was shot in Mexico with a very hip, young cast and crew. Dayle often felt as if she was the only person on the production who wasn’t high on something half the time. One night, during a weekend beach party, she indulged in too many margueritas. Everyone went skinny-dipping, and soon, two-somes and threesomes were ducking into the bushes or cars to have sex. Dayle wound up on a cheesy yacht that belonged to a friend of Cindy something. She didn’t know what Cindy had to do with the movie, but she was pretty, with long, curly red hair, blue eyes, and freckles all over her slender body. Cindy also had a little cartoon of Winnie the Pooh tattooed on her ass—along with the words, BEAR BOTTOM.

The next morning, Dayle felt so sick and hungover as she crawled out of the bunk. She found her damp, sandy clothes amid beer cans and food wrappers on the cabin floor. Pulling on her panties, she squinted out the porthole and was relieved to see that they were docked at a pier with a couple of other boats, and not drifting somewhere in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. But her hopes for a clean getaway were dashed when Cindy woke up and said something about going out for pancakes.

Dayle apologized and said she had to leave. Her memory of the night before was vague. She’d gone into the water with the others, but kept on her panties. Cindy had stripped all the way to nothing. Several of the guys were after her, but Cindy shot each one down, and eventually she swam to Dayle.

Having been married two years to a gay man, Dayle was curious about same-gender sex—and maybe just a tad interested in evening the score on her wandering spouse. She’d felt a rush of excitement sneaking away with Cindy. But by the time they began kissing and touching each other, it seemed silly. Dayle had to pretend she was someone else in order to overcome the awkwardness. The whole experience was like another acting assignment. She didn’t enjoy it very much.

And she really didn’t want to have pancakes with Cindy. Despite her urgency to get the hell out of there, Dayle tried to let Cindy down easy. She told her that the previous evening’s activities had been a fluke, a drunken experiment. She couldn’t get dressed fast enough. “Considering this kind of thing isn’t my bag,” she heard herself say. “I still had fun with you….”

Cindy stared at her sleepily. Puffing away on a Newport, she lay naked in the bunk, an ashtray balanced on her stomach. “Bullshit,” she said finally. “This is your bag. You’re into girls. That’s what I heard on the set. You dig girls, your old man is into guys, and the two of you got married to please the Hollywood establishment.”

Dayle didn’t remember how long she stuck around trying to convince Cindy that she was wrong. But she vividly recalled the wavering boat, and feeling so sick. When she finally climbed up to the deck, she braced herself against a light post by the dock, and succumbed to the dry heaves.

The half-true rumors about her “marriage of convenience” periodically haunted Dayle and Jeremy during the eight years they were together. But the talk never grew above a whisper, and it stayed within the Hollywood community. Ironically, it took Dayle’s affair with Simon Peck—along with the divorce, and Jeremy’s subsequent remarriage—for the gossip to die down about both of them. Ending in all that mess, it didn’t seem so much like a marriage of convenience anymore.

Of course, the tales about Dayle’s lesbian leanings were resurrected after the release of Survival Instincts. And just as the gossip started subsiding, Leigh’s “suicide” ignited all sorts of new speculation. What was Dayle’s role during Leigh’s last hours that night at the Portland hotel? Had a lover’s quarrel provoked Leigh’s overdose?

The publicity dates with John McDunn had helped take some of the heat off. The former lovers looked so right together, their claim that they were “just good friends” seemed like a smoke screen for some torrid affair. More damage control came from Dayle’s publicist, who concocted a story about the meeting with Leigh on that fateful night. According to the press release, the two women had gotten together to discuss Leigh recording the theme song for Dayle’s new movie. A lot of people bought the story. In fact, several recording artists expressed interest in taking over the vocal assignment.

Dayle had to look out for her reputation. Nevertheless, the more she thought about having to take these steps in the wake of Leigh’s death, the less she liked herself.

She ran harder, pouring it on until she was sprinting around that rooftop track. Her lungs burned, and beads of sweat flew off her forehead.

When she’d started her laps a half hour ago, Dayle had been alone up there. The track encircled a glass- enclosed pool area—complete with lounge chairs, umbrella tables, blooming plants, and potted trees. There were also rest rooms and a mini-gym around the corner by the stairwell, on the other side of the elevator. The maintenance crew kept this semiprivate paradise spotlessly clean. Still, the place always smelled like chlorine and wet socks.

No one was using the pool right now. As dusk gave way to night, the inside lights—set on a timer—went on. Dayle tallied her twenty-eighth lap and began to slow down. Passing by the vestibule for the elevators, she caught a glimpse of someone on the other side of the glass door. He’d been standing there, watching her—a short, pale, mustached man in an aviator jacket. Despite the darkness, he wore sunglasses. Dayle didn’t recognize him as one of her neighbors in the building.

Now that she’d spotted him, the stocky little man suddenly turned away and tried to look interested in the pool area. It wasn’t a very convincing show. He opened the other door and stepped into the tropical atrium, but he kept sneaking these furtive glaces at her.

Dayle peered back over her shoulder at him. She veered along a bend in the track, and ran a half lap on the other side of the building. Taking another curve, she saw him again—still in the pool area. He hadn’t strayed far from the vestibule door. He seemed to be staking out the elevators.

The distant blare of a car horn made her aware of the traffic several stories below—just on the other side of the chest-high railing. The wind kicked up a little, and Dayle suddenly felt cold. The sweat on her forehead turned clammy.

Warily, she watched him move back into the vestibule. She could tell that behind those sunglasses, the creepy man was staring at her. She must have been frowning at him, because he suddenly turned again, and reached for the elevator button. But he didn’t actually press it, his thumb missed the button by an inch. The little arrow light didn’t go on. Almost too casually, he glanced back at her again. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was waiting for her.

Dayle couldn’t quite catch her breath—even as she slowed down to a trot. Her skin felt prickly.