City Of Mirrors: A Diana Poole Thriller Part 9

"She told me she didn't care about the movie or her obligation to it. She was more interested in going clubbing. She confessed she didn't want to be an actress, that you'd forced her into it, that she was doing it for you." As I watched his face flush and the tendons on his neck protrude, I continued. "She said you were a dreamer, but she was the one who was the realist. She told me she didn't believe in pretending. Even when she was a child."

"Stop talking," Parson commanded, in a low threatening voice.

I did. Heath's muscles tensed but he stayed where he was.

Except for the seagulls, it was quiet as Parson mulled over what I had just told him.

Finally he spoke in a calm voice. "When I was child I used to sneak into the one movie theater in our neighborhood. Not because I cared about the movies being shown, at least at first, but because in the dark with no one watching me I could eat the popcorn and candy stuck on the filthy floor. And if I didn't get kicked out, I'd sleep there overnight. I was starving on the streets, and that's one way I survived. But that also began my love affair with the movies. They saved my life." His voice deepened with pain and anger. "They should've saved Jenny."

I suddenly realized that Jenny had grown up in a world of fantasy, her father's, right down to the decor on his boat. But the guns were real.

"Did she appear to be afraid of someone?" he asked.

"Quite the opposite. She struck me as being a tough, singular young woman who delighted in not letting Zaitlin tell her what to do. Or anyone else. Except ..."

"Yes?" He leaned forward licking his lips, greedy for more information.

"When I told her I thought she was a good actress, she let down her defenses for a moment and became a vulnerable young woman who needed to hear just how good she was."

"I knew she wanted to act." He sat back and pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand. "I knew it! She was her father's daughter." Then he asked, matter-of-factly, "Describe how you found her body."

I told him about conning the doorman to get into her condo. Looking out her window, seeing the garbage truck, and then the sun reflecting off the silver heel of her shoe. How I ran into the alley screaming for the sanitation workers to stop dumping the bin. As I talked he listened with an eerily distant expression, as if I were recounting a nightmare I'd had that didn't relate to him.

When I finished he closed his eyes. "I bought her those shoes." Tears ran down his sunken cheeks, and I felt both loathing and sympathy for him. Taking a white handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped at his face. "Why were you so intent on getting inside her condominium?"

"I was worried about her. She had left my name with the doorman. That meant she wanted to see me and go over her lines."

"Once you got into her condo, why did you look out the window?" It was Heath.

"What?"

"Something must've prompted you to."

"What else do you do with a window but look out of it? And I was vamping for time. The doorman couldn't understand why I wasn't leaving the urn, which was why he'd let me into her condo in the first place. I was trying to come up with a plausible answer. Then I saw the glint of her high heel."

"So you didn't see the actual murder scene?" Parson asked.

"No. I mean there was no blood or upset furniture in her condo, so I doubt she was killed there."

"She wasn't." Heath removed a battered leather notepad from inside his jacket. It was stamped with a military insignia of some kind. "One of my contacts in LAPD told me that they think Jenny was murdered in her car, an Audi, while it was parked in the condo's underground lot. They've impounded it."

"What else did you learn?" Parson was now fixed on Heath.

"Do you want to discuss this in front of her?"

"Ms. Poole seems to know my daughter quite well. No reason she shouldn't know more. It may help her memory."

Heath shrugged and flipped his notebook open and read from his notes. "I was told she died of blunt-force trauma to the back of her skull."

"How many times was she struck?" Parson asked sharply.

"Don't know. They haven't been able to start the forensics yet. Too much backlog of waiting cases. She may have been slammed against the pa.s.senger side of the car window. Or someone could have been hiding in the back seat, rose up, and struck her from behind."

"You said pa.s.senger side?"

"Jenny wasn't driving. The police have her car on the garage security tape coming in at 12:33 A.M. But a man is behind the wheel."

"Can they identify him?" He sat forward.

"The images are shadowy," Heath continued. "So far they can't make an identification on the male. But it's early yet. There is equipment that should be able to resolve the image well enough-and if the cops don't have it, then you can afford to pay some company to do it for them."

"There has to be a security tape of them stopping, of the man getting out of her car," Parson said.

"Her parking s.p.a.ce is out of range from the cameras."

"Christ. What happened to the driver?" Parson snapped. "He had to leave the garage somehow."

"About fifteen minutes after they drove in, there's an image of a male wearing a hooded sweat shirt walking into camera range from where her car was parked. He ducked his head as if he realized he was being taped. There's an exit door to the alley. You can leave through it without using a key, but it locks behind you automatically, so once you're outside you can't get back in unless you have a key. The door isn't in camera range either."

"Is he the same man who was driving?"

"At this point the police can't say."

"What about the plastic bags she was wrapped in? And how was she transferred from the garage to the ..." he paused, then said, "Refuse area."

"Nothing on that so far."

Parson shifted his body toward me. "Do you know who my daughter was with the night of her murder?"

I remembered Ben Zaitlin had told me he was at the same club that night, but I wasn't about to give Parson his name.

"No."

He inhaled sharply, nostrils twitching. Leaping to his feet, he picked up the vase of red roses. And threw it over my head against the wall behind me. I ducked. He shifted his body and kicked the coffee table. It crashed into the empty chair next to me. I jumped up.

With one long stride, Heath stood between Parson and me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Heart pounding, I stood with gla.s.s shards around my feet. Facing Parson, Heath remained standing between us. He balanced lightly on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, shoulders tensed as if he were about to swing a punch. Doors slammed as Luis and the tattooed man bolted in from the back of the yacht and from the deck.

"Get outta here!" Parson barked at his guys.

Both vanished.

"n.o.body withholds information from me." Parson stared at me over Heath's shoulder. His rage had turned his face a violent red and spittle had formed at the corners of his mouth.

"Hey man." Heath held up his hands, palms toward Parson, his voice low and reasonable. "She has no reason not tell you what she knows. She's here to help you. She's the only one who cared enough about Jenny to make sure she was all right."

Parson's body trembled, then he collapsed back onto the sofa. Heath held his ground for a few more moments, turned, and moved toward me. I let out my breath as he kicked the pieces of the vase away from my feet. He went back to his place against the wall. I sat down.

With his long fingers, Parson wiped at the saliva on his lips. "Heath is right." His voice was measured. "You were the only one who tried to help her, and I appreciate that. But that doesn't mean you might not want to protect someone."

I made sure my voice was firm when I spoke. I didn't want to show this man any vulnerability. "I don't know who killed your daughter. You must have enemies. Maybe they wanted to get back at you through her. Your portholes are draped ... are you afraid someone might shoot you?"

"I find mourning in the brilliant sunlight unbearable," Parson said.

I swallowed hard. I had felt the same when Colin died.

"n.o.body I know, least of all my enemies, would dare to hurt Jenny. And if anyone is in danger, I would say it was you, Ms. Poole."

"Why me?"

"Jenny's body was meant to be pressed into a landfill, never to be seen again. But you found it. If I were her killer I'd be worried about what you knew or didn't know, what you saw or didn't see. You might suddenly remember some little thing I'd forgotten, some insignificant detail that could lead back to me." He smiled grimly. "No, I'd have to take you out."

Furious, I rose up out of the chair. "I'm tired of being threatened by you and your thugs. Let me go now or I'll tell the police you held me here against my will."

"In my world the police have little power." Parson stroked his goatee. The bony pasha was back. "You remind me a lot of your mother."

Christ, my mother again.

"'No bulls.h.i.t allowed,' that's what Nora would always say when we were in bed together."

Was there anybody she hadn't had s.e.x with? "I really don't want to hear about your affair with my mother."

"It was a long time ago. I thought since you were carrying her ashes, you must still love her."

"Mr. Parson, I'm ready to leave. And you don't want to keep the cops waiting."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "Your husband, Colin, was a wonderful writer. I'm sorry he died."

My mouth went dry. "So am I."

"I have fond memories of talking to him about the creative mind."

"You knew him?"

"You were newly married at the time. That would be, what? Eight, ten years ago? If I remember correctly you were on location finishing shooting your last movie. Too bad. You were becoming as good as your mother when you decided to quit. Colin and I had interesting discussions. He told me the creative mind could plot and deceive and dazzle just as brilliantly as the criminal mind, except that the criminal mind had no conscience. I disagreed with him on that point. I told him it was writers who had no conscience." A thin dry laugh escaped his lips.

"How would my husband know you?" I didn't bother to keep the contempt from my voice.

"I used to throw parties on this boat. Hollywood loves to rub shoulders with those of us who have, how shall I put it ... a darker kind of star power." Parson contemplated me. "It might be best for you and the memory of the ones you've loved to think of any names you've forgotten to give me."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Oh, and if asked by the police or anyone else, I want you to say you were willingly picked up by my limo driver as recorded by the media. You came here of your own volition to help a grieving father learn more about his daughter's death." He flashed me his skeletal grin. "If you think about it, the paparazzi were far more dangerous to you than I've been."

"What could be so damaging to my husband? He's dead, for G.o.d's sake." My voice broke.

"The last thing I want is for you to be hurt by the actions of one who has died."

"Do you ever speak without it sounding like a threat?"

He waved a hand at Heath. "Drive her back to Malibu."

"Your chauffeur isn't taking me?" I said.

"Gerald is driving me to Montecito for my appointment with the detectives. Come and visit sometime. It's high on a hill with sweeping views of the Channel Islands and the Pacific. Hollywood people are moving into the area in droves. Colin thought you'd love it there." He stood, his thin body drooped. "I'm very tired. It's been a trying day." He walked softly in his velvet slippers to the door that Luis had used and left the salon.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"Yes, he is," Heath said.

"I was referring to you." I swept past him and out onto the deck.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"What's your problem?" Heath called after me.

I was hurrying ahead on the boardwalk, weaving through the tourists and the locals. Gerald had returned my purse. I was searching through it when I stopped and whirled around. Heath came to a sudden halt.

"I'll tell you what my problem is. I don't like the way you treat women. You've done nothing but maul me ..."

"Only because you wouldn't listen to what I was saying."

"Women don't listen to me so I have to beat them up?"

His head snapped back. He adjusted his sungla.s.ses. "Whoa, how'd we get to me beating up women? And what about you trying to drop a plate of food on my head?"

"What were you doing using an a.s.sumed name at Bella Casa?"

His smile slid sideways, and his head c.o.c.ked. "Maybe seeing you naked in the swimming pool made me forget my real name."