Part 3 (2/2)

The queen-size bed was made. A giant flat screen TV dominated a dresser. Her closet door had been left open displaying an array of designer clothes. I peered into a beautifully appointed bathroom-the towels were neatly folded on bra.s.s bars.

If I were a young girl who had been out clubbing the night before, there would be clothes strewn on the floor and a bed messed up. Some signs of a life in disarray-the way my apartment had looked when I was her age. Maybe she hadn't come home last night. On the other hand, her car was in the garage. But a friend or a boyfriend could have picked her up here. The plain truth was that Jenny was a no-show. What a waste-and what was going to happen to the movie?

The doorman cleared his throat, trying to hurry me along. ”I'll tell Ms. Parson you were here.”

Back in the living room, I asked, ”Is there any other place she could be in the building? Maybe the laundry room?”

He crossed to the kitchen and opened a door, proudly displaying a washer and dryer. ”Not many condos have the s.p.a.ce for these appliances. All of ours do.”

I felt a warm wind ruffle the back of my hair. Turning, I saw a small window off the dining area had been opened. At the same time, I could hear the sound of a large engine. I looked out the window and down to an alley that ran alongside the building. A truck from the sanitation department was emptying large blue bins.

”They're late again,” the doorman announced.

I turned to him. ”Thanks for your help.”

”Aren't you going to leave her mother's ashes?” He gestured at the urn in my arms, then frowned. ”Her father didn't say anything about her mother being ill. He's very protective of his daughter.” Suspicious, he stabbed an accusing finger at the urn. ”That nameplate says 'Nora Poole.'”

But I was looking out the window again. I realized I had just seen a flash of silver as one of the dumpsters was being loaded onto the truck. There was something about it ...

The doorman was still talking. ”I didn't know Nora Poole was Jenny's mother.” He was trying to reason it out. ”Wait, I know you. You're Diana Poole. What's going on here?”

Ignoring him, I stared at the s.h.i.+ny object that now jutted out from a large black garbage bag. The blade of a knife? I felt a chill. It was the high heel of a shoe. Silver, like Mercury's wing, like Jenny's beautiful high heels I had admired yesterday in her trailer.

”Stop!” I screamed down at the two men. ”Stop!”

They continued working since they couldn't hear me over the grinding noise of the truck's motor. The doorman had taken a step back and was gaping at me.

”Come here,” I ordered. ”Keep shouting at them to stop. Jenny's in there!”

His face blanched. ”What you talking about?”

”Her shoe!” I hurried past him. ”And call 911!”

Clutching the urn, I ran down the hallway and kept slamming the elevator's down b.u.t.ton until it arrived. Bolting through the lobby and out the front doors, I flew down the sidewalk to the alley. I rushed at the garbage truck with its two operators, yelling at the top of my lungs. The bin was on the lift, tilting dangerously into the maw of the truck.

”There's someone in there.” I pointed to the garbage bag on top as it rolled to the edge. ”A woman is in there!”

One of the men pointed to his ear protectors, meaning he couldn't hear me.

Stepping forward, I yanked one of them away from his ear. ”Stop it!” I yelled.

He glowered at me but pushed down on a lever. The bin froze in midair. I leaned over, gasping for breath.

”Que paso?” He took off his ear protectors.

I pointed up to the bin. ”Shoe. Check the bag, por favor.”

”You lose shoe?”

”Yes. A shoe!” Please, G.o.d, let it be just a shoe.

Commanding his partner in Spanish, the bin slowly descended to the ground. Then he got up on the lift. ”This bag?” He pointed.

I nodded. My heart pounded.

Shaking his head, he pulled himself up into the bin and ripped open the bag. His mouth fell open and he lurched backward crossing himself, saying a prayer in Spanish. The doorman loped down the alley, epaulets flapping, waving his cell in the air. ”I called 911. The police are coming.”

As he scrambled down, I stood on my toes trying to see into the bin. I glimpsed blood-matted auburn hair and one green milky eye looking directly at me. I wish I hadn't.

Staggering back, I slumped against the building's white marble wall. It felt warm on my back from the sun. I slid down it into a sitting position and leaned my forehead against my mother's urn.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

I've always thought it odd that people sometimes refer to a moment in life as if it were a scene in a movie. Real life doesn't have a camera, lights, and a boom mike hovering around you. It doesn't have a time limit defined by the length of the dialogue. It doesn't have a corpse leaping to her feet after the director calls ”Cut!” and asking ”How did I do?” And it doesn't have the set laughing at her unintentionally funny question.

Mother would always remind me that in acting, reality was no excuse. ”Only the hack,” she explained, ”says 'But that's how it happens in real life.'”

Yet when the black-and-white patrol cars arrived, rooftop beacons flas.h.i.+ng in the twilight, the unnecessary ambulance parked beside the truck, and the yellow crime-scene tape encircled the area, it did look like a movie. And I was beginning to think reality was no longer an excuse in my own life.

Detective Dusty Spangler introduced herself in a voice as flat as Kansas: ”I know, it sounds like a stripper's name.”

I had the feeling she used this line to put people at ease or gain more information. Her pale hair was pulled back into a stub of a ponytail. She wore almost exactly what her male partner wore. Blue blazer, a s.h.i.+rt, and gray slacks. Her sizable belly hung over her belt and leather hip holster. I wondered how she reached her weapon in an emergency.

After I'd told her exactly what had happened, she checked her notes and said, ”So you used your mother's urn to get into the condo. You're a very resourceful woman.” She made it sound like one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

I asked her if I could leave, explaining that I didn't want to deal with the media. I knew that once they found out Jenny and I were both in the same movie, it would turn into a circus. She let me go with the a.s.surance that I would give her my complete statement at the West Los Angeles Station.

Now I drove up the long driveway to Zaitlin's house. I had called him at the crime scene to tell him what had happened. Beyond upset, he had wanted to see me immediately.

Zaitlin and his family lived in a grand French chateau, always referred to without irony as ”the farm house,” atop a hill in Brentwood. Three stories high, with a steeply pitched slate roof, dormers, turrets, and four useless towers, the stone mansion had spectacular views west from the Pacific Ocean all the way east to the San Bernardino Mountains, which towered over Pasadena.

When I arrived at the crest, expensive cars were parked in a driveway built to hold many expensive cars. I pulled up to the front entrance, and a valet appeared and opened my door. Rap music pounded viciously from the side yard.

I leaned my head back against the seat and remembered tonight was the birthday party for Robert and Gwyn's son. I closed my eyes. A party was the last thing I needed. Then I grabbed the urn and let the valet help me out.

”I won't be long,” I told him.

The two-story foyer was empty except for a security guard in a black suit standing in front of a ma.s.sive carved-wood door. A round marble table filled the center area of the limestone floor.

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