The Next to Die

toward her trailer.

Dennis caught up with her at the door, leaving Laura behind to chat with the assistant director. “So what do you think of her?” he whispered.

“Oh, she’s nice—and very pretty.” Dayle stepped into the trailer.

Dennis followed her in, then shut the door. “So—am I still in the casa de fido?” he asked warily.

“Why should you be in the doghouse?” Dayle sat down at her vanity table. “You mean for suggesting I was paranoid yesterday?”

He nodded. “I was out of line, Dayle. I’m sorry.”

She smiled at him in the mirror. “Okay, no sweat. You’re forgiven.”

He just stood by the door, looking at his feet. “Um, listen. I heard some bad news from the studio publicity folks a few minutes ago.” He took a deep breath. “Maggie McGuire’s dead. Somebody shot her.”

Dayle turned to stare at him. “What?” she whispered.

“It was on the AP wire. Happened in her house. Her dog was barking all night long, and one of her neighbors called the cops. They found Maggie on her kitchen floor early this morning, before dawn.”

Dayle kept shaking her head. Tears stung her eyes.

“The cops are pretty certain an obsessed fan did it,” Dennis sighed. “But considering everything that’s happened lately, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m sorry, Dayle. I know you liked her.”

She nodded. “I want to send flowers to Maggie’s children.”

“Consider it done,” he replied.

She turned toward her vanity once more. “Dennis, I think I need to be alone for a while,” she said, her voice quivering.

“I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.” He paused in the doorway, and caught her reflection in the vanity mirror. “For the record, Dayle,” he said quietly. “If I ever thought you were paranoid—I don’t any more.”

The Noon News Report on TV led with their coverage of Maggie’s death. Tom Lance watched a jerky clip of the sheet-covered corpse on a gurney as it was loaded into an ambulance. A police barricade held people back; it could have been a star-studded film premiere, judging from the curious crowd. A pretty, black woman reporter in a red suit stood in Maggie’s driveway—just about where Tom had parked his car yesterday. She announced that the police didn’t have any clues. “One theory here is that Ms. McGuire’s killer is an obsessed fan. But police are still gathering evidence.”

Tom found himself smiling. The cops didn’t know.

He’d wiped away his fingerprints. No one except the dog had seen him arriving and leaving. On the way home, he’d stopped by Santa Monica Beach, and from the pier, he’d tossed his gun in the ocean.

All morning, he’d sat in front of his TV, waiting for the story to break. There hadn’t been anything in the morning paper. For a change, one of the other tenants hadn’t stolen it today. Most of his fellow occupants in the ugly, three-story gray stucco apartment building were lowlifers. But Tom’s place was nicely furnished—if not a bit cluttered with mementos. Framed lobby cards from his films hung on the living room walls, and his career scrapbook sat on the coffee table. His old landlady used to browse through it with him occasionally, but her kids stuck her in a nursing home a few years back.

The telephone rang, startling him.

This was the third time today. Tom didn’t answer it. He hardly ever got any calls—except for the occasional wrong number or salesperson. This had to be the police. Last night, he’d been convinced that at any minute they’d break down his door and arrest him. Several shots of Jack Daniels had helped calm him down. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa, drunk and weepy.

Even with the pretty reporter on TV assuring him that the police had no clues, the ringing phone made Tom feel hunted. He got to his feet. The painful gout had subsided a bit. He hobbled over to the window, moved the old lace curtain and glanced at the street below. He half expected to see a line of police cars in front of the building. But there was nothing. His Volare was still parked down there. He wondered if the police already had a description of it from one of Maggie’s neighbors.

At last the telephone stopped ringing, and the moment it did, Tom realized something: cops didn’t phone murder suspects, they came to their homes. No one had knocked on his door yet, and they probably wouldn’t either, because they knew nothing. Maybe those calls were from reporters wanting to interview him. After all, he’d discovered Maggie and made her famous. “Damn!” Tom muttered, falling back on the couch. The first time in years—decades—that the media would want to interview Tom Lance, and he’d been too scared to answer the phone.

Maggie’s death captured the lead spot on the noon news. He could look forward to a big, fat obituary in the evening papers, and certainly a tribute on Entertainment Tonight. Murdered movie stars were the stuff that made tabloid covers, best-sellers, and TV movies. Every time a film star died, their costars were interviewed on TV and quoted in newspapers and magazines. He’d made Maggie famous again. And he would become famous again too.

“You want the official findings, Sean? Leigh Simone OD’d in the ladies’ room at the Imperial. Her fingerprints were on the hypodermic. She had almost two grand worth of heroin in her purse, and she wrote something on the bathroom mirror about her life being a lie, I forget the exact wording.”

“So the case is closed?” Sean asked, the phone to her ear. Sitting at the desk in her half-painted office, she had her pen poised on a legal pad. After Dayle’s last phone call, Sean wanted to find out just how much the Portland police knew about the deaths of Leigh Simone, and Tony Katz and his friend. Were they even close to suspecting a conspiracy? From her years as an attorney in Eugene, Sean had established ties with many law enforcement officials in Portland—from policemen to prosecuting attorneys.

On the other end of the line right now was Vincent Delk, a well-respected cop who became a desk jockey after getting shot in the knee during a drug bust. Vinnie had his hand on the pulse of the whole force. He was an excellent source. And it helped that he had a crush on her.

“You’re hesitating, Vinnie, my love,” she said, tapping her pen on the legal pad. “Is the Leigh Simone case closed or not?”

“Well, darlin’, it hasn’t officially reopened, but quite frankly, I want to dig a little deeper into this sucker. Now, don’t quote me…”

“I told you,” she said. She stopped taking notes for a moment, “This isn’t for anyone but me. I just want your personal take, Vinnie.”

“Well, from day one, this case smelled fishy to me. That message Leigh Simone wrote on the mirror, it always struck me as bogus. I mean, how often do we find a suicide note with someone who has OD’d on heroin?”

“Huh, not very?” Sean murmured.

“Nope. That dog don’t hunt. Another thing sticking in my craw is the timing. It happened less than two weeks after Tony Katz and his buddy bought it in those woods outside St. Helens.”

“You see a connection?”

“At first I thought it was the hotel. They were both staying at the Imperial at the time of their deaths.” Vincent Delk let out a long sigh. “So we checked the registration and found a handful of guests who were there during both Tony Katz’s and Leigh Simone’s stay. But all of the people cleared. Ditto the hotel staff. I still see a connection. But I’m a minority opinion.”

Sean stopped writing for a moment. “So what’s the connection?”

“One word: planning.”

“I’m listening,” Sean said.

“The scene in the ladies’ room looked like a suicide or an accidental overdose, right? But in case of any doubts, we get this weird message on the mirror, spelling it out for us. To me, that’s the result of deliberate planning.”

“Go on.”

“I’m not sure you want me to,” Vincent said. “It’s got to do with what happened to Tony and his friend. It’s not pretty, Shawny.”